This report briefly outlines the history of the establishment of the U.S. naval station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba during the early twentieth century, its changing relationship to the community around it, and its heightened importance with the onset of military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. It also explains in detail the legal status of the lease of the land on which the naval station stands, the statutory and treaty authorities granted to the President with regard to any potential closure of the naval station, and the second-order effects on such a closure that current Cuba sanctions laws might have.