Naval Base Guantanamo is US property. Obama cannot “give” it to anyone.
Does the US own the land, or is it a long term lease? I thought it was a lease, but am not certain.
Not to be mean, but what’s to stop 0 from giving Gitmo away? The dictator can do anything he pleases.
In 1903, the new Republic of Cuba leased to the U.S. the Naval Reservation on which the Naval station is now located. The lease was negotiated to implement the Platt Amendment—which passed Congress in March 1901 and was added to the Cuban constitution in May 1902.
Article VII of the Platt Amendment and the appendix to the Cuban constitution require the United States to help maintain the independence of Cuba and the Cuban government to “sell or lease to the United States the lands necessary for coaling or naval stations.”
The 1903 lease, signed by President Theodore Roosevelt on Feb. 23, 1903, required us to pay Cuba annual rent of $2,000 a year in gold. The original lease was later abrogated and modified by the Treaty of 1934 between the U.S. and Cuba, signed by President Franklin Roosevelt, on May 29, 1934.
The new lease incorporated by reference the 1903 lease terms—except the annual lease payment increased to $4,085—and further stated that “So long as the United States of America shall not abandon the said naval station of Guantanamo or the two governments shall not agree to a modification of its present limits, the station shall continue to have the territorial area that it has now.”
When the communists took over Cuba in 1959, they cashed the check for $4,085, but they have refused to cash subsequent checks.