Barack Obama nominated career diplomat Jeffrey DeLaurentis as the nation's first ambassador to Cuba in 55 years after the US President and the Cuban President Raúl Castro announced a thaw in relations in December 2014. Obama received credentials last year from José Ramón Cabañas Rodríguez, the first Cuban ambassador to the US since 1961. Since then US administration has moved to relax restrictions on commerce, trade, and travel to Cuba and direct commercial flights from the US to Cuba. For now US embargo against Cuba remains in place since only the Congress can lift it and the strong Republican leadership is not expected to do so anytime soon.

DeLaurentis has been US chief of mission in Cuba since August 2014 and has held diplomatic posts at the State Department in Washington, at the US mission to the UN and in Bogota.

His nomination requires Senate's confirmation that is likely to face opposition in Congress. An individual Senator has the power to put a "hold" on the ambassadorial nomination to delay a full Senate vote. Republican lawmakers have opposed Democrat Obama's outreach to the Communist regime led by Castro.

Republican Cuban-American Senator Marco Rubio stated: "This nomination should go nowhere until the Castro regime makes significant and irreversible progress in the areas of human rights and political freedom for the Cuban people." He is accusing Obama of failing to confront Cuba over its repressive policies. Obama's administration argues that pointing an ambassador was not a concession to the Cuban government, but a move to strengthen the US in advocating human rights improvements and American national security interests.

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