Since taking office in 2025, the Trump administration has portrayed Cuba as a national security threat to the United States, pledging to “use every tool at our disposal” to counteract the government there, including regime change.  While the U.S. and Cuba have been at odds for decades, this approach includes an increase in political and economic pressures, including limitations on oil and increased sanctions. 
 
Former U.S. Ambassadors Jeffrey DeLaurentis and Peter DeShazo ’69 will discuss the recent evolution of the U.S./Cuba relationship, the variables in play in that dynamic, increased U.S. sanctions and other forms of pressure, the effects of those measures and possible future outcomes.

Moderated by Victoria K. Holt, Director of the Dickey Center.

During his 28-year career in the U.S. Foreign Service, Ambassador Jeffrey DeLaurentis worked almost exclusively on Western Hemisphere issues and as a multilateral diplomat at the United Nations.   He served as the first Charge d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Havana following the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba in 2015.   Prior to this, he was Ambassador for Special Political Affairs at the U.S. Mission to the UN.  Previously, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, as Minister Counselor for Political Affairs at the U.S. Mission to the UN as well as earlier postings in Colombia, Geneva, Cuba and at the National Security Council.   

Ambassador DeLaurentis was called back to government service in January 2021 as the Senior Advisor for Security Council Affairs and acting Deputy Permanent Representative at the U.S. Mission to the UN.  In September 2023, he began a two-year appointment at Simmons University as the Joan M. Warburg Professor of International Relations.   He has held fellowships at Georgetown, Harvard, Columbia, and Dartmouth and is currently a Visiting Professor at Fordham University, Senior Non-resident Fellow in International Affairs at Dartmouth, Distinguished Fellow at the Stimson Center and an associate with Harvard’s David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies.   DeLaurentis is a graduate of Georgetown University Walsh School of Foreign Service and Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs. 

Ambassador Peter DeShazo is Visiting Professor of Latin American, Latino and Caribbean Studies and Chair of the Globalization Studies Concentration in the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies Program at Dartmouth College. Formerly a career U.S. foreign service officer, he was posted in Latin America and the Middle East and served as Deputy U.S. Permanent Representative at the Organization of American States and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs. After retiring from the State Department, DeShazo directed the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. and was Executive Director of LASPAU, Academic Programs for the Americas, affiliated with Harvard University. He has taught at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of Johns Hopkins, at Harvard, and at Boston University. Ambassador DeShazo holds a BA from Dartmouth College (’69) and a Ph.D. in Latin American history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Free and open to the public. Reserve your ticket here.

Recorded and live-streamed, register for the webinar here.