A CONVERSATION WITH THE AMBASSADOR

Professor Emeritus Philip Brenner, expert on US-Cuba relations and the coauthor of Cuba Libre: A 500-Year Quest for Independence, welcomes Cuba’s ambassador to the United States, Lianys Torres Rivera, to SIS for a virtual event. They’ll discuss Cuba’s lauded medical system, including the island nation’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and how our two countries can find common ground despite tensions that have extended back for decades.

For more than 50 years, between 1961 and 2015, the US and Cuba had no formal diplomatic relations. Since the resumption of formal diplomacy in 2015, only two people have served as the Cuban ambassador to the United States, including Ambassador Torres Rivera. She is a senior diplomat in Cuba’s foreign service, and previously served as Cuba’s ambassador to Vietnam. This event promises to feature a thoughtful, wide-ranging discussion and an audience Q&A about the nation that is only 100 miles from the Florida coast but often seems a world away.

Lianys Torres Rivera is the first woman from Cuba to serve as Ambassador to the United States and only the second to hold the role in nearly 60 years. She has been a diplomat since 1994. Prior to her most recent appointment, she served as Cuba’s Ambassador to Viet Nam until being tapped this past December to replace former Cuban Ambassador to the United States José Ramón Cabañas Rodríguez. From 2015 to 2017, she was part of the Cuban delegation who met with the US government authorities to discuss the re-establishment of diplomatic relations and the re-opening of embassies in both countries. She was also part of the Cuba-US Bilateral Commission, the Cuba-US Bilateral Economic Dialogue, and other Cuba-US bilateral dialogues on regulatory issues, human rights, traffic in persons, the establishment of direct postal services, renewable energy, and banking issues.

Professor Emeritus Philip Brenner teaches in the US Foreign Policy program at American University’s School of International Service. His areas of expertise include US foreign policy, Latin America with emphasis on the Caribbean and Cuba, US-Cuban relations, and the Cuban Missile Crisis. A former chair of American University’s Council on Latin America, he also has served as director of the US Foreign Policy program, senior associate dean for academic affairs, and chair of the Department of International Politics and Foreign Policy. Since 1985, Brenner has served on the advisory board of the National Security Archive and has been involved in the archive’s efforts to declassify and disseminate documents about US foreign policy, including those related to the Cuban missile crisis.