President Barack Obama will travel to Cuba on Sunday, the first time since Calvin Coolidge that a USA president has set foot on the island.
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Over the past year, US officials have worked to reopen Cuba to America with historic agreements, including direct flight agreements and the first direct mail delivery to the country just this week, which included a letter for President Obama.
People make their way along Neptuno Street at dusk in downtown Havana, Cuba, Wednesday, March 16, 2016.
Officials at Cuba’sForeign Ministry in Havana and its embassy in Washington didn’t respond to calls and emails seeking comment on the dissidents’ claims.
Ahead of the Stones’ gig, President Obama will travel to Cuba on March 21-22, with a delegation of up to 20 members from Congress and a handful of CEOs in tow, including executives from Marriott (MAR) and Xerox (XRX). Marco Rubio, the former presidential candidate born to Cuban parents-have said Mr. Obama’s detente and Cuba visit are windfalls for the Castro government, providing little benefit to Cubans. Speculators say USA companies seeking new markets in Cuba may have a harder time than initially thought. In December, McGovern helped launch a bipartisan Cuba Working Group created to further strengthen ties with the country.
Rhodes said Obama will also deliver a speech “to the Cuban people” that will be broadcast on state-run television Monday. Though Obama has been rolling back restrictions on Cuba through regulatory moves, he has been unable to persuade Congress to lift the US trade embargo, a chief Cuban demand. Much of the excitement around traveling to Cuba can be best captured in a phrase I have been hearing with increasing regularity since relations began to warm: “I want to see Cuba before it changes”.
The three-day trip to Cuba, which will be followed by a trip to Argentina, will include a bilateral meeting between Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro.
Since Chavez died in 2013, Maduro has continued to aid Cuba with Venezuelan oil in exchange for missions by Cuban doctors and nurses in the South American country. This Cold War era anachronism gave Fidel and his brother Raul an excuse for the struggles of the Cuban people and angered Latin American nations who interpreted this policy as American imperialism.
“The first question is: What’s going to be the behavior of the Cuban government” afterward?
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Once the excitement fades, the trade embargo remains firmly intact, though the president’s arrival with American CEOs (from Xerox and Marriott) hints at future business pacts.
