Today I was curious as to how the U.S. ended up with a naval base at Guantanamo Bay, even though it's in Cuba and the two countries have had a rocky relationship for decades. The answer goes back to the early 1900s, after the Spanish-American War.

After the U.S. defeated Spain in 1898, Cuba became independent, but the U.S. wanted to keep a strategic foothold in the Caribbean. The Platt Amendment (1901) set the terms for U.S. withdrawal from Cuba, but also gave the U.S. the right to lease land for naval bases. In 1903, the Cuban-American Treaty granted the U.S. a lease for Guantanamo Bay, which was reaffirmed in 1934. The U.S. pays Cuba a small annual fee, but the Cuban government has mostly refused to cash the checks as a form of protest.

The base has been a sore spot in U.S.-Cuba relations, especially after the Cuban Revolution in 1959. Fidel Castro's government saw the base as a violation of Cuban sovereignty and a symbol of U.S. imperialism.

Kinda wild that the US still uses Guantanamo as a detention center today.

Takeaways:

  • The U.S. lease of Guantanamo Bay dates back to 1903, after the Spanish-American War.
  • The base is a legacy of U.S. intervention in Cuba.