The United States has always believed that our best ambassadors are the American people themselves [...] It’s people-to-people diplomacy; nothing may epitomize its modern manifestation more than the way Airbnb has succeeded in connecting tourists with hosts on the island.

Under the Obama administration, U.S. policy toward North Korea largely has devolved into the president sitting in the Oval Office, closing his eyes, and hoping the nuclear monsters will go away [...] If Pyongyang is ever going to talk about human rights, it will do so only after it feels more secure. If there is any hope for evolutionary change within the North, such a process will be advanced by greater cultural and economic cooperation.

The Obama administration on Friday announced an overhaul of its efforts to respond to online propaganda from the Islamic State after months of acknowledgments that it had largely failed in its attempts to counter extremist recruitment and exhortations to violence on social media. The administration has emphasized that it needs the assistance of some of the nation’s biggest technology companies, and a group of top White House and national security officials flew to California on Friday to plead their case with executives.

President Barack Obama will be making good use out of Air Force One while he still can. [...] The travel will be aimed at cementing a foreign policy legacy he hopes will include the Trans Pacific Partnership, increased attention to Asia, an opening of Latin America, progress on ISIL and significant global movement on climate change.

Players as pawns in political games is not always a bad thing. Major League Baseball is about to visit Cuba on a "Goodwill" tour that marks the Dec 17 meeting last year between Barack Obama and Raul Castro when the two presidents agreed to start to "normalise" the relationship between the countries.

When US President Barack Obama recently spoke at the United Nations about countering the Islamic State, many of his critics complained that he put too much emphasis on diplomacy and not enough on the use of force. It is more accurate to see the current mood as a swing of the US foreign policy pendulum between what Columbia University’s Stephen Sestanovich has called “maximalist” policies and “retrenchment” policies.

President Barack Obama met his Cuban counterpart, Raul Castro, on Tuesday at the United Nations — all smiles after both renewed their calls for an end to the US trade embargo against Havana.[...] “The president also highlighted steps the United States intends to take to improve ties between the American and Cuban peoples, and reiterated our support for human rights in Cuba,” it said.