When Obama walks off Air Force One onto the red carpet at Jose Marti airport in Havana Sunday, he’ll be taking another big step towards normal relations with the island, and kicking another hole in the wall of isolation that the USA spent decades trying to build around Cuba.
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Obama hopes to use his trip to Cuba – the first by a sitting president in almost 90 years – to lock in as much progress as possible between the United States and Cuba before he leaves office.
-reopened the U.S. Embassy in Havana.
To view the full article, register now. Announcing that Obama’s speech would be carried live on Cuban television, Rodriguez said Cubans would be able to draw their own conclusions from the president.
Obama’s White House has struggled to overcome the legacy of George W. Bush, who through the Iraq War and harsh rhetoric had rekindled anti-US sentiment borne of past coups, death squads and heavy handed intervention. The news drew immediate condemnation in Congress, where a bloc of mostly Republican Cuban-American lawmakers has worked to keep tight restrictions on trade and travel with Cuba for years. Obama has been easing restrictions on U.S.travel and commerce in Cuba.
The recently agreed to broadcast will be “quite powerful”, Earnest said.
She said she began writing to Obama during his first presidential campaign and had written him four or five times since then, all demanding the lifting of the US trade embargo on Cuba.
“Let’s not forget that the Castro regime has been guilty of countless human right abuses”, said House Speaker Paul Ryan at a Thursday press conference when asked about the embargo.
The US embargo against Cuba is a testament to the irrational fear the most powerful country on Earth harbors against its tiny neighbor.
The announcements made on December 17 (St. Lazarus Day) weren’t all talk, as many believed, and the changes continued to happen. On Monday, he will participate in an official state visit, including a bilateral meeting with President Raul Castro and a state dinner.
The embargo limits how much business American companies can do in Cuba, and President Obama has acknowledged the embargo likely won’t be lifted by the end of his term.
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And from now on American tourists can feel free to enjoy their people-to-people “educational” exchanges on a beach outside Havana so long as they certify on a USA government form that indeed their trip was for educational purposes and not just tourism.
