Dozens of US lawmakers, including a handful of Republicans, will also travel with the president to Cuba along with USA business leaders and some Cuban-Americans, Rhodes said, arguing that their inclusion reflected growing support in the USA for lifting the generations-old embargo. And while European cruise ships now make regular appearances in Havana harbor, US lines have yet to receive Cuban approval months after getting the OK from the Treasury Department.
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Restrictions on direct USA investment in Cuba and Cuban imports to the United States remain in place because of the embargo with Cuba.
Obama also plans to deliver a speech at the National Theater of Cuba that he hopes will be broadcast live around the country. “Reestablishing travel and trade relations means real benefits for people in IL and across the country, from farmers to small businesses to working families”.
United Airlines today submitted its latest filing to the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) for authority to begin commercial air service to Cuba from its global gateways in Newark/New York, Houston, Washington and Chicago to Havana’s José Martí International Airport in Cuba.
President Barack Obama will visit Cuba next Monday and Tuesday, becoming the first sitting president in 88 years to set foot on the island, NBC News reported.
The trade and travel changes will allow Cubans to open USA bank accounts and authorize those living in the Unites States to earn a salary or compensation, the US government said. US officials say travel rose around 50 percent, a discrepancy explained by Americans illicitly traveling to Cuba as tourists through third countries.
Not enough is being done to help Cubans or to increase their incomes or technological connectivity, but that is an economic issue that Cuba and its people need to resolve, Gross said.
Mr Rhodes said Mr Obama’s speech “will be a very important moment in the president’s trip, an opportunity for him to describe the course that we’re on, to review the complicated history between our two countries but also to look forward to the future”.
As for ordinary Americans, they can now take “people-to-people” educational trips to Cuba on their own instead of joining expensive group tours. U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., challenged Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew during a congressional hearing on Tuesday.
After that Obama will have face to face talks with President Castro, a meeting billed as “an opportunity to review progress made” , areas of agreement and areas of disagreement – including United States concerns over Cuba’s human rights record.
“You now have given more sanctions relief to the Castro regime, but we ask nothing in return”, Diaz-Balart said.
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Information for this article was contributed by Michael Weissenstein and Josh Lederman of The Associated Press; by Scott Lanman, Margaret Talev and Andrew Mayeda of Bloomberg News; and by Karen DeYoung of The Washington Post.
