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President Obama To Make Historic - If Controversial - Visit To Cuba Next Month

The White House
Cuban President Raul Castro (left) and U.S. President Barack Obama meet at the Summit of the Americas last April in Panama

President Obama plans to make a historic, if controversial, visit to Cuba next month in an effort to accelerate normalized relations with the socialist island. He confirmed the news Thursday morning.

Sources say Obama will visit Havana the week of March 21, most likely March 21 and 22. From there, according to media reports, he will travel to either Chile or Argentina.

According to ABC News, a National Security Council official will formally announce the President’s Cuba visit tomorrow at the White House.

Not since Calvin Coolidge in 1928 has a sitting U.S. head of state visited Cuba. The two countries have been estranged since the Castro revolution took control of the island in 1959 and diplomatic relations were severed in 1961. In December 2014, Obama and current Cuban President Raul Castro announced they would re-establish those ties, and last summer the nations re-opened embassies in Washington and Havana.

Normalization opponents - especially South Florida’s Cuban-American congressional delegation - have urged Obama not to visit Cuba until the Castro government offers deeper democratic and economic reforms. On her website, Miami Congresswoman Ileana Ros Lehtinen said the visit “will only legitimize the Castros’ repressive behavior.”

 

In a December interview with Yahoo! News, Obama himself said, “I am very much interested in going to Cuba, but I think the conditions have to be right.”

He now apparently believes they are.

There are no official details regarding the president’s Cuban itinerary. Obama and Cuban leader Raul Castro have met twice before, once for a brief handshake at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service in South Africa in 2013 and then for a more substantive sit-down last April at the Summit of the Americas in Panama.

UPDATE:

Thursday morning, the White House said Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama will meet with members of Cuban civil society as well as Castro.

Obama himself said on Twitter that his trip will "advance our progress and efforts that can improve the lives of the Cuba people. We still have differences with the Cuban government that I will raise directly. America will always stand for human rights."

"This historic visit...is another demonstration of the President's commitment to chart a new course for U.S.-Cuba relations," the White House said, adding Obama hopes it will have the effect of "advancing commercial and people-to-people ties."

The weekend before Obama arrives, the Rolling Stones are scheduled to perform in Havana, and the Tampa Bay Rays plan to play an exhibition baseball game against the Cuban national team while he's there.

In Argentina on March 23 and 24, Obama will meet with new President Maurico Macri.

 

Tim Padgett is the Americas Editor for WLRN, covering Latin America, the Caribbean and their key relationship with South Florida. Contact Tim at tpadgett@wlrnnews.org
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