A Historic Summit of the Americas

A Historic Summit of the Americas

This Friday and Saturday, in Panama, most of the leaders of countries in the Western Hemisphere will gather for the biannual Summit of the Americas. This conclave promises to be an historic event, because, for the first time ever, the Presidents of the United States and Cuba will both be in attendance. It will be one of the few times that the two countries’ leaders have shared any stage since Dwight D. Eisenhower and Fulgencio Batista met—coincidentally, also in Panama—in 1958, and it is poised to be the most significant interaction. (Fidel Castro and Bill Clinton briefly met at a United Nations event in 2000, but merely shook hands; Barack Obama and Raúl Castro shook hands at Nelson Mandela’s funeral.) Somewhat coyly, the White House has said that there are no plans for a one-on-one meeting between Obama and Castro, but that the two may have the opportunity to meet “on the margins of those events.”

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