When people talk about the resumption of relations between the United States and Cuba, as they did over the weekend as President Obama and President Raúl Castro sat down for the first meeting between leaders of their two countries in more than 50 years, they talk mostly about history and diplomacy and influence, and what it could mean for the future in terms of trade and travel, not to mention human rights. What they do not generally talk about, however, is fashion.

And the new star in Latin America is ... the United States? The reviews are in, and while the United States still faces plenty of tricky relations in a diverse region of 35 states, President Obama walked away with more salutes than swipes from a regional Summit of the Americas where the United States usually takes a drubbing. The question now is whether Mr. Obama and his successors can capitalize on the new credibility Washington has earned, primarily through his reconciliation with Havana.

After triumphs abroad, President Barack Obama is finding stern challenges at home to his foreign policy breakthroughs, facing hard sells to skeptics over U.S. shifts, first on Iran and now Cuba. Obama returned to Washington early Sunday still basking in the attention from his historic meeting with Cuban President Raul Castro at a summit of Western Hemisphere leaders. But Obama is certain to find a lessappreciative crowd in Congress than the one he left behind at the Summit of the Americas in Panama.

The presidents of the United States and Cuba have spoken by phone for only the second time in more than 50 years, setting the stage for a historic encounter between the two leaders at a regional summit starting Friday in Panama. The extraordinary, late-night call between President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro came shortly after both leaders arrived in Panama City for the Summit of the Americas, which begins on Friday.

Opening a three-day trip to the Caribbean and Central America, President Barack Obama hopes to capitalize on mutual needs in the face of expanding Chinese influence and weakening power by Venezuela, once the energy juggernaut of the Americas.

America’s pivot to Asia has been discussed widely since the strategy was unveiled in President Obama’s speech to the Australian Parliament in 2011. Although many other global strategic issues needed to be addressed since then, it is interesting to revisit the rebalancing because Obama’s rhetoric can be used as a prism through which his idea of America’s priorities will become clear.

It is perhaps only an accident of history that three of the key actors in the diplomatic efforts to deny Iran a nuclear bomb are the 2004, 2008, 2012 and probable 2016 Democratic presidential nominees. But their intertwined ambitions provide a dramatic backdrop to the unfolding and unfinished story.

In his weekly address on Saturday, US President Barack Obama began his campaign to assure Americans and sway skeptics that the framework for a nuclear pact with Iran was a "good deal." A day after Obama called top lawmakers to urge support for the agreement, he pressed his case that Iran would not be able to build nuclear bombs.