President Obama expected to visit Cuba in March

Following secret negotiations between their governments, Obama and Castro announced in late 2014 that they would begin normalizing ties, and months later held the first face-to-face meeting between an American and Cuban president since 1958. The White House later issued a news release saying that the president “will work to build on the progress we have made toward normalization of relations with Cuba”.

Josefina Vidal, head of US affairs from the Cuban foreign ministry, said at a press conference that the historic visit, the first by a USA president since 1928, will offer Obama a chance to get firsthand information about the isolated island.

Texas senator Ted Cruz, whose father fled to the U.S. from Cuba in the 1950s, said Mr Obama should not visit while the Castro family remains in power.

President Barack Obama will visit Cuba on March 21 and 22, the White House announced Thursday.

The White House says Cuba-America policy hasn’t worked. Just days ago, Cuba and the USA signed an agreement to resume daily flights.

The visit was first reported Wednesday by ABC News.

“Put simply, U.S. Cuba policy wasn’t working and was well beyond its expiration date”, he wrote on Medium.

President Obama and Cuba’s Raul Castro, l. greet each other in Panama on April 11, 2015.

– President Obama (@POTUS) February 18, 2016 Our flag flies over our Embassy in Havana once again.

Washington and Havana restored diplomatic ties last July and the U.S. relaxed travel and trade restrictions after a 54-year freeze.

“My friends, it doesn’t take a Global Positioning System to realize that the road of mutual isolation and estrangement that the United States and Cuba were traveling is not the right one and that the time has come for us to move in a more promising direction”, Kerry said at the ceremony. Republicans complained that the trip would lend legitimacy to the island’s Communist government.

But travel purely for tourism won’t be allowed until the U.S. Congress lifts a longstanding embargo, which also restricts most trade with Cuba. “But we need not be defined by it”, Rhodes wrote.

“It will be an opportunity for President Obama to appreciate the Cuban reality” and to discuss how to ‘expand bilateral dialogue and cooperation between the two countries, ‘ she said in English.

“We remain convinced the people of Cuba would be best served by a genuine democracy, where people are free to choose their leaders, express their ideas, practice their faith”, said Kerry.