U.S. President Barack Obama landed in Cuba on Sunday, beginning a round of official meetings today on issues that could immediately advance U.S. interests in Latin America. Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro will lay the groundwork for further economic transactions by loosening U.S. restraints on trade with Cuba. Colombian peace talks and Venezuela's deteriorating economy will undoubtedly be on the agenda, too. After all, Havana has some influence when it comes to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the Venezuelan government.

Given the overwhelming media coverage of Obama's trip to Cuba, the first by a sitting U.S. president since 1928, there has been little mention of why the small island nation matters so much to the United States in the first place. Cuba has traditionally possessed an enduring strategic importance to long-term U.S. security, that much is clear. Yet given the distractions Washington has faced elsewhere, the current lull in direct threats to the North American mainland has now enabled less strategically important issues to take precedence.

As far as Washington is concerned, Cuba's prominence comes from its location. As a relatively large island astride the Straits of Florida, Cuba can conceivably host a military presence capable of exerting influence over shipping lanes entering and exiting the Caribbean. In the U.S. strategic mindset, the power to threaten shipping in the Caribbean is the power to threaten U.S. exports through the port of New Orleans, which in turn could create an economic chokehold on the United States. It is partly why the United States challenged Spain in the 1898 Spanish-American War, fearing that a more powerful United Kingdom could gain a foothold in Cuba, by either diplomatic or military means. The island could then be used as a British base to threaten exports from Louisiana. Similar concerns partly drove the United States to occupy Haiti to control the adjacent Mona Passage. Consequently, U.S. foreign policy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries often focused on securing the Caribbean and Central America, precisely to prevent such threats from emerging.

But those concerns have long passed into the hypothetical realm. In 1898, the United States soundly defeated Spain in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines, bringing Cuba into the U.S. political orbit. That control persisted until the Cuban Revolution brought Fidel Castro to power in 1959. Under Castro, Cuba hosted Soviet ballistic missiles. It was the closest that a foreign presence in Cuba has come in recent history to posing a direct threat to the United States. But when the Cold War ended, so, too, did Cuba recede in importance to the United States. Without a foreign power possessing the capability to intervene in Cuba in a threatening manner, only lower priority issues, such as re-establishing trade ties, will be of concern to the United States in coming years.

Technological advances have and will continue to change the U.S. strategic view of Cuba, particularly with regard to the leasing of the naval base in Guantanamo Bay. The United States retains control under a long-term lease, having established the base at a time when physical control of such installations was necessary to project naval power and conduct reconnaissance to detect potential threats to the U.S. mainland. But a host of technologies that enable the United States to see farther and transmit information rapidly — including reconnaissance satellites, signals intelligence and high altitude recon aircraft — have made physically owning assets in Cuba more or less obsolete. Still, the base will by no means return to Cuba or even come up for discussion any time soon. Guantanamo still has uses, albeit ones that are less strategically significant: It is, for example, an ideal launching ground for operations against narcotics and human trafficking.

It is exactly because of Cuba's relative insignificance to the United States that the presidential visit could even occur, and why the outreach efforts will continue. Washington has few pressing concerns in Latin America. Conversely, Havana was on the cusp of an existential crisis. With the political and economic situation in Venezuela — Cuba's largest financial backer — steadily deteriorating, Havana would have faced a dilemma in coming years. It may still yet. But by drawing closer to the United States, the Castro government intends to secure its economic (and consequently, its political) survival. Even slight openings in trade and financial transactions will likely aid the Cuban economy.

Cuba's opening to the United States is still in its early stages. Discussions in the near term will focus on lifting the U.S. embargo on Cuba, though that is an issue that will depend on the political mood in the United States. However, one thing is clear: The U.S. government, for the time being, will view Cuba in terms of a potential trading partner, not a major security threat.