American Airlines has formally opened an office in Havana, Cuba despite uncertainty over what the Donald Trump presidency will mean for relations between the two countries.
According to the Associated Press, the opening of the office on Wednesday comes just two months after the airline celebrated its first commercial flight from the US to Havana in more than five decades.
“We cannot speculate about what [Mr Trump's] next step will be, but I can assure you that we are moving our machine forward,” said Galo Beltran, the Cuba manager for American Airlines, according to the Associated Press.
”You are a witness to the investment and how important Cuba is to American as a US entity doing business.“
As one of his final acts of President of the US, Barack Obama last month ended a longstanding immigration policy that allows any Cuban who makes it to US soil to stay and become a legal resident.
The repeal of the “wet foot, dry foot” policy followed months of negotiations focused in part on getting Cuba to agree to take back people who had arrived in the US.
The Cuban government praised the move. In a statement read on state television, it called the signing of the agreement “an important step in advancing relations” between the US and Cuba that “aims to guarantee normal, safe and ordered migration.”
