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Airlines push for US-Cuba routes as Obama eases visitor restrictions

Near the Hotel Nacional De Cuba is one of Havana’s iconic 1950s…

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“Today we are building on this progress by facilitating travel for additional Americans looking to engage with Cubans; allowing Cuban citizens to earn a salary in the United States; and expanding access to the U.S. financial system as well as trade and commercial opportunities”, said Lew. The move comes as the countries begin easing restrictions for travel and business as they try to fix the relationship.

Rhodes said the administration wants “very much to make the process of normalization irreversible” beyond Obama’s term in office, and will propose “steps that the Cuban government can take going forward to further open up space for the Cuban people”.

Travelling with first lady Michelle Obama and their daughters Sasha and Malia, the president plans to start his visit late on Sunday with a tour of the cultural sites of Old Havana.

USA officials declined to predict how this might affect Major League Baseball, which is in negotiations with the US and Cuban governments.

Obama will become the first sitting US president to visit Cuba in almost 90 years when he arrives there next week.

Obama will not be seeking to “dictate outcomes” however, said the White House, acknowledging that past calls for democracy had sounding like attempts at “regime change”.

Obama will round of his visit by watching a baseball game between the Tampa Bay Rays and Cuba’s national team. “Basically it was the Potemkin tour of Cuba, where the Cubans could exert control”.

Any American can now travel to Cuba under 12 categories of legally permissible purposes, which include professional, religious and journalistic activities. Obama met Thursday with 16 Cuban Americans at the White House to talk about the status of human rights in Cuba and political arrests that continue throughout the island.

7News will be live in Cuba covering this historic trip.

On Tuesday morning, Obama will deliver his historic speech to the Cuban people.

Vilsack cited soybeans, rice, poultry and biofuels as new markets US farmers could tap in Cuba, which in turn could sell organic products to its former Cold War foe.

Several lawyers involved in helping companies to explore deals with the Cuban government said Cuban officials raised the prohibition on US dollars in most meetings with USA executives and administration officials.

“From that perspective, that’s how we implement the embargo”, Borman said.

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Dozens of USA lawmakers, including a handful of Republicans, will also travel with the president to Cuba along with US business leaders and some Cuban-Americans, Rhodes said, arguing that their inclusion reflected growing support in the USA for lifting the generations-old embargo.

President Barack Obama speaks during a reception for Women’s History Month in the East Room of the White House in Washington Wednesday