“America will always stand for human rights around the world”, he tweeted.
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Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, whose father fled to the US from Cuba in the 1950s, said Obama shouldn’t visit while the Castro family remains in power.
Rubio said the White House’s historic thaw with Cuba has not resulted in any improvement in human rights. “President Obama has raised these issues in his discussions with President Castro, and will continue to do so”, Rhodes wrote.
Obama still seeks to pressure United States lawmakers to remove the decades-old embargo on Cuba but Republicans control Congress and are unlikely to act soon.
At the news of Obama’s deeply symbolic trip, a comment posted on the Cubasi news site reads, “I’m going to take him to have lunch at my local diner so he can see the effects that his government’s cruel and ruthless embargo has on us”.
Given the foreseeable political changes in the United States, the Cuban government is wary of challenges ahead on the road of normalizing bilateral ties.
Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser, said the president will carry the message that the US and Cuba need not be defined by their “complicated and hard history”. Florida Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, born in Havana, deemed Obama’s March 21-22 visit “absolutely shameful”.
Obama and Castro announced in late 2014 that they would begin normalizing ties. Relations between the two countries were cut off in 1961, shortly after the Cuban revolution led by Fidel Castro. Still, while Obama has long expressed an interest in visiting Cuba, White House officials had said the visit wouldn’t occur unless and until the conditions were right.
Although the White House hasn’t publicly disclosed any candidates Obama is considering, he’s expected to look closely at a number of circuit court judges – including some who meet the benchmark that Biden laid out.
“For Cubans accustomed to watching their government sputter down the last mile of socialism in a ’57 Chevy, imagine what they’ll think when they see Air Force One”.
Cuban leader Raul Castro (L) meets with U.S. President Barack Obama (R) on the sidelines of the 7th Summit of the Americas in Panama City, capital of Panama, on April 11, 2015.
Obama’s visit carries huge symbolic value and prestige as his administration takes steps to expand commerce with the island nation, only 90 miles (145 km) from Florida.
Officials didn’t immediately specify what had changed in the last few weeks to clear the way for the trip, first reported by ABC News.
The two nations signed a deal Tuesday restoring commercial air traffic for the first time in five decades.
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The last president to make a state visit to Cuba was Calvin Coolidge, who arrived there by battleship 88 years ago. “The visit will be important because it may lead to more agreements in the warming between the countries”. Last year, the two nations reopened embassies in Havana and Washington for the first time since Dwight Eisenhower was president.
