Barack Obama and Raúl Castro at a press conference in Havana, Cuba, in March 2016 Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un at a summit in Hanoi, Vietnam, in February 2019 Détente is the relaxation of strained relations, especially political, by verbal communication. The term, in diplomacy, originates from around 1912 when France and Germany tried unsuccessfully to reduce tensions. Most often, the term is used for a phase of the Cold War. It was the policy.
