But, without Congress, there’s only so much President Obama can do to strengthen economic ties between Cuba and the USA, according to Gustavo Membiela, a partner at the Hunton & Williams law firm in Miami.
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Rhodes said the president will be “very candid about areas of disagreement, including the human rights practices that have concerned us in Cuba and our support for universal values in Cuba and around the world”.
DANIEL WILKINSON: This is a form of constant harassment, intimidation that really takes its toll on people who are trying to exercise basic rights to protest or to attend political meetings or to meet with visitors like Pope Francis and other people coming from outside.
After the students were bumped from Havana, Janice Palmer, a media relations officer for CCSU, contacted Tim Hartz, a White House staff member who worked with CCSU when the president visited campus in 2014.
It is the first visit to Cuba by a sitting president since Calvin Coolidge in 1928, and one meant to advance U.S. efforts “that can improve the lives of the Cuban people”, Obama had said when he announced plans for the trip last month.
Cuban President Raul Castro pinned the medal, known as the Order of Jose Marti, on Maduro in a show a solidarity between socialist allies that have stood together against the United States since Maduro’s predecessor, the late Hugo Chavez, came to power in 1999. This is reflected in consumer culture, the study said, including strong awareness of USA brands.
Cuban and US flags are seen outside a restaurant in Havana, Cuba on Thursday. Only Congress can lift the embargo, but so far, lawmakers have resisted President Obama’s call to end it. No longer will all ships have to wait to be boarded by the U.S. Coast Guard for inspections, though the Coast Guard still can conduct random inspections. “I look forward to seeing real change for the Cuban people”.
White House officials have downplayed concerns that such antagonistic comments poison the climate for Obama’s visit or indicate Cuba is unready to truly normalize relations.
President Obama wrote a letter to Ileana Yarza, a 76-year-old letter write in Cuba.
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Obama’s letter flew to Cuba on Wednesday on the first direct mail flight since the 1959 Cuban revolution. “American producers are missing out on a market that imports the vast majority of its agricultural products, and Cubans are missing out on exposure to the freedom and democracy that lies just 90 miles from their shore”, Ribble said in a statement.
