Why Barack Obama will visit Cuba
The US president spoke about the trip on his Twitter account, where he shared the document in which the reasons detailed him to visit Havana on 21 and 22 March . The full text
Ben Rhodes, Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications and Speeches White House and one of the men closest to Barack Obama, who signed the document is who shared the US president on Twitter.
"In short, the US policy toward Cuba was not working. The most important thing is that our policy was not improving the lives of the Cuban people and, in many respects, the was getting worse. And that's how we got here "said the adviser to one of the crudest paragraphs of text.
"Cuba is only 90 miles from Florida, but long distance between our two countries looked much older. For more than 50 years, the US has carried out a policy of isolation and pressure to Cuba , " he says Rhodes.
The full text continues:
At the beginning of the Obama Administration, the goal was to make it easier for Cuban Americans to travel and send remittances to Cuba, because the president believes that Cuban-Americans are our best ambassadors for the Cuban people.
We later spent many months of secret negotiations
organized by the Canadian government and with the support of Francisco
and Vaticano.Y on December 17, 2014, President Obama announced along
with the president of Cuba, Raul Castro that the United States and Cuba could begin a new chapter and take steps to normalize relations.
Since then, progress has been made in opening relations between our countries. Last summer, diplomatic relations and Secretary of State John Kerry traveled to Cuba to raise the American flag on our embassy were restored.
"Progress has been made in opening relations between our countries"
This diplomatic presence makes it much easier for the United States to promote interests and values in Cuba, as we do in countries around the world.
We have facilitated visits to Cuba of US lawmakers, businesses and academics. Changes in policies and US regulations have allowed increased travel and increased trade between our countries.
In fact, during this period, the number of American visitors allowed to go to Cuba has increased by 54 percent, allowing greater participation from people to people. This will continue to increase, since earlier this week, United States and Cuba reached an agreement so that they can restore direct flights between our countries for the first time in over 50 years, a change that will allow up to 110 direct flights to Cuba from the United States every day.
"This progress is insufficient. There is much more to do"
Yet this progress is insufficient. There is much
more that can be done -for the United States and the Cuban government
to advance this opening in a way that will be good for Cubans and good
for the United States.
That is why President Obama is traveling to Cuba. We want to open more opportunities for US businesses and travelers to interact with Cuba, and we want the Cuban government to open up more opportunities for their people.
We believe that Congress should lift the embargo, which is to advance welfare and human rights of the Cuban people, and eliminate onerous restrictions that are intended to dictate to Americans who can and can not travel.
Our openness to Cuba has also created new possibilities for the United States in Latin America.
We have worked with Cuba and other countries to support President Santos and the Colombian people to put an end to a civil war lasting decades. After the president 's trip to Cuba, he and the first lady will travel to Argentina, a country with a new president who wants to start a new chapter in improving relations with the United States.
This is another indication that the future is bright for the United States in our own hemisphere.
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Obama's trip to Cuba
President of United States , Barack Obama , is preparing a trip to Cuba in March and thus will become the president in exercise of American country to set foot on the island in 80 years.
The visit to Cuba, to be held on 21 and 22 March,
will be the culmination of the process of normalization of relations
announced by the Cuban government and US in 2014, and the first time a
US president in exercise pisa Cuban territory from the Calvin Coolidge trip in January 1928.
On that occasion, on the occasion of the Sixth Annual International Conference of American States, which was held in Havana, Coolidge was received by President of Cuba, Gerardo Machado.
Obama's visit to Cuba will take place on 21 and 22 March
Coolidge was the last president and the only one in US history who visited Cuba during his tenure as the Democrat Jimmy Carter has traveled to the island twice (2002 and 2011), but two decades after leaving the White House .
Last December, Obama had already advanced in an interview with the Yahoo portal hoped to visit Cuba in 2016, his last year in office, but that would only make the trip if conditions were to meet with dissidents on the island.
"If I visit (to Cuba), part of the deal is that I will be able to talk with everyone,"
Obama said in the interview, conducted on the eve of which was the
first anniversary of the announcement of the beginning of the process of
normalization of US relations with Cuba.
"I have made it very clear in my direct talks with President (Raul)
Castro would continue contacts with those who want to broaden the scope
of freedom of expression in Cuba," he said.
Obama then insisted that he was "very interested" in visiting Cuba and said he would make a decision "in the coming months."
Obama insisted he was "very interested" in visiting Cuba
"Yes, indeed, I can say with confidence that we are seeing progress in freedom and possibilities for Cubans, I would use a visit as a way of emphasizing that progress , " said the US president.
Under the restoration of relations, this week Cuba and the US signed an historic agreement on civil aviation
that will allow a regular connection of commercial flights between the
two countries for the first time in more than five decades.
The agreement represents a potential of dozens of daily connections back and forth,
with 20 flights a day to Havana and 10 daily flights to other airports
on the island, some routes for 5 decades have only been operated by
charter companies, they may continue to operate as before.
After signing the agreement, the bidding process is opened
for US airlines submit their applications to the Department of
Transport for the routes they would like to operate, a process that US
officials expect to finalize as soon as possible.
In addition, in the last year and US Cuba also reopened their embassies and signed agreements on environmental protection and to restore direct mail service.
One issue that hinders the full normalization is the economic embargo
on Cuba and whose complete lifting depends on the US Congress, but
Obama has taken executive action to ease travel and some business
transactions.
Obama himself said the economic embargo imposed by his country to Cuba
is "the legacy of a failed policy" and urged Congress to help him up, a
request which reiterated on several occasions.
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