This paper analyses the impact of the new African policy adopted by the Kennedy administration in the early 1960s in the relations between the United States and Portugal. According to the new principles guiding its policy towards Africa, the United States was to abandon its ambiguous attitude towards European colonialism and actively support the self-determination and independence of colonial peoples in Africa. This new African policy brought great distress to the Portuguese government. Portugal was one of the last European colonial powers in Africa and it had not yet initiated a formal process of decolonisation. The United States, however, had an important military base in the islands of the Azores: Portuguese territory in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The existing agreement was due to expire at the end of 1962, and conversations between the two governments developed throughout that year. In order to renew the agreement, the Portuguese government demanded a radical change in US policies towards Portuguese colonialism.