The United States got Guantanamo Bay in two steps: it took the bay by force during the Spanish-American War in 1898, then locked in a permanent right to stay through a 1903 lease that Cuba signed under heavy pressure. That lease has no expiration date. It can end only if both governments agree to end it, or if the US decides to leave. Neither has happened in more than 120 years, which is why the 45-square-mile naval station is still the oldest overseas American military installation.1Naval Station Guantanamo Bay. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay
The 1898 Landing
American forces first arrived at Guantanamo Bay on June 10, 1898. A landing party of about 60 sailors secured Fisherman’s Point without opposition, finding that Spanish troops had abandoned the position in haste. The First Marine Battalion, under Lieutenant Colonel Robert Huntington, came ashore the same day and established Camp McCalla on the hillside overlooking the bay. The American flag went up over Cuban soil the following morning.2Marine Corps University. US Marines in Battle – Guantanamo Bay 10 June – 9 August 1898
Spain lost the war. The 1898 Treaty of Paris forced Spain to give up all claims to Cuba, and the United States occupied the island militarily.3Office of the Historian. The Spanish-American War, 1898> That occupation is what gave Washington the leverage to turn a wartime foothold into something permanent.
The Platt Amendment Set the Terms
American troops did not leave Cuba for free. The Platt Amendment, passed as part of a 1901 Army appropriations bill, laid out eight conditions Cuba had to accept before US forces would withdraw. Two of those conditions mattered most: the United States reserved the right to intervene in Cuban affairs to defend Cuban independence, and Cuba was required to sell or lease land for American naval and coaling stations.
Under pressure, Cuba’s constitutional convention ratified the amendment in June 1901 by a vote of 16 to 11 and wrote it into the Cuban constitution.4U.S. Department of State. The United States, Cuba, and the Platt Amendment, 1901 The base at Guantanamo was not chosen through negotiation between equals. It was chosen by the occupying power and accepted by a new government that had no realistic alternative.
The 1903 Lease Agreements
The Platt Amendment’s requirements were then formalized through three separate legal instruments in 1903. In February, the presidents of both countries signed a lease agreement covering the Guantanamo Bay area. In May, the broader Cuban-American Treaty of Relations was signed, embedding the Platt Amendment’s provisions into a binding treaty; Article VII repeated the key requirement that Cuba “sell or lease to the United States lands necessary for coaling or naval stations.” A supplementary lease was executed on July 2, 1903, spelling out the financial terms.5Office of the Historian. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961-1963, Volume X, Cuba, January 1961-September 1962 Document 301
What did the United States actually get? Under the February 1903 lease, it holds complete jurisdiction and control over the base. It governs the territory, enforces its own laws there, and controls who enters. Cuba retains what the agreement calls “the ultimate sovereignty of the Republic of Cuba” over the land. In practical terms, Cuba owns the territory on paper while the United States runs everything on it.6Avalon Project. Agreement Between the United States and Cuba for the Lease of Lands for Coaling and Naval Stations, February 23, 1903
The lease has no fixed end date. It continues as long as the United States occupies the base, unless both governments agree to modify or cancel it. Neither side can end it on its own. For this open-ended right, the US agreed to pay Cuba an annual rent of two thousand dollars in American gold coin.7Avalon Project. Lease to the United States by the Government of Cuba of Certain Areas of Land and Water for Naval or Coaling Stations, July 2, 1903
The 1934 Treaty Kept the Lease Alive
The Platt Amendment did not survive forever, but the Guantanamo lease did. Under President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor policy, the United States and Cuba signed a new Treaty of Relations on May 29, 1934. The new treaty formally ended the 1903 treaty and with it the Platt Amendment, removing the US claim to intervene in Cuban internal affairs.8Yale Law School. Treaty Between the United States of America and Cuba, May 29, 1934
Article III of the 1934 treaty explicitly preserved the base. Until both governments agreed otherwise, “the stipulations of that agreement with regard to the naval station of Guantanamo shall continue in effect.” The base would keep its existing territorial boundaries, and both the February 1903 lease and the July 1903 supplementary agreement remained in force.9GovInfo. Treaty Between the United States of America and Cuba, 48 Stat. 1682
The rent was recalculated at this point. Because the original payment had been set in gold coin and the US had moved off the gold standard, the amount was converted to $4,085 in US currency. The US Treasury has continued issuing that same annual payment ever since.
Why Cuba Cannot Force the US Out
After Fidel Castro’s revolution in 1959, Cuba’s posture toward the base changed sharply. Castro reportedly cashed the first annual rent check that year, but Cuba has refused to accept payment ever since, viewing the American presence as an illegal occupation of sovereign territory. The US maintains that its continued issuance of the checks demonstrates compliance with a treaty that remains legally binding.
Cuba has challenged the lease on international-law grounds. The central argument is that the 1903 agreements were extracted under duress. The Platt Amendment functioned as an ultimatum backed by occupying troops, and Cuba’s first government signed the lease understanding that American forces would remain if it refused. That kind of unequal bargaining power, Cuba contends, should invalidate the agreement.
Article 52 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties supports that logic in principle. It states that a treaty is void if its conclusion was “procured by the threat or use of force in violation of the principles of international law embodied in the Charter of the United Nations.”10United Nations. Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, 1969 Cuba has further argued that “force” should be read broadly to include economic pressure.
These arguments have not gained legal traction. The Vienna Convention was adopted in 1969 and is generally not applied retroactively to treaties signed decades earlier. The US position is that the 1903 and 1934 agreements are valid and binding, and that only mutual consent can end the lease. No international tribunal has ruled on the dispute. The base remains American as a matter of practical control and, in Washington’s view, as a matter of treaty law.