Josefina de la Caridad Vidal Ferreiro

Cuban diplomat. General Director for the United States of Cuba's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She presided over the Cuban delegation in the first and second Round of Cuba-United States talks to pave the way for the restoration of diplomatic relations between both countries.

Recognized as a prepared, intelligent woman and precise in her use of words. She is fluent in English, French, and Russian.

She completed a doctorate in international relations at the State Institute of International Relations in Moscow.

In the 1990s she served as an analyst at the Cuban embassy in Paris.

Her main area of specialization is the United States.

Between 1999 and 2003 she served as first secretary at Cuba's Interests Section in Washington. From that position she participated in negotiations related to migration and the direct mail service, among others. She had to leave the country in 2003, after the George W. Bush administration expelled 14 Cuban diplomats whom it declared persona non grata for alleged "activities hostile to national security," although she was not among those expelled, she returned to Cuba.

After her return, she joined the North America division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which she has led since 2006. In 2012, the State Department granted her a visa to carry out outreach work with Cubans residing in the United States. A year later, in 2013, during her conference at Columbia University, she showed herself to be in favor of rapprochement between both countries.

On December 17, 2014, the presidents of Cuba, Raúl Castro Ruz, and of the United States, Barack Obama, announced in separate statements the restoration of relations between both countries.

In compliance with the announcement by the presidents of Cuba and the United States, the meeting dedicated to the process of restoring diplomatic relations and opening embassies was held in Cuba on January 22, 2015, with the Cuban delegation presided over by Josefina Vidal.

She headed the Cuban delegation that attended the second Round of Cuba-United States talks, held on February 27, 2015, at the George C. Marshall Center, of the State Department in Washington.

On March 27, 2018, the Governor General of Canada, Julie Payette, received in solemn audience Josefina Vidal, who presented her credentials as extraordinary ambassador and plenipotentiary of Cuba to that country.

During the ceremony, which took place at Rideau Hall, the official residence of the Governor General, Vidal held an exchange with Payette, to whom she expressed the interest of the government of the largest of the Antilles to expand and strengthen the traditional mutually beneficial relations between both nations and peoples.