Florida Roundup: Obama’s Plan To Visit Cuba

U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, issued the following statement on the president’s announced trip to Cuba. -Eduardo Hernandez, Miami ” His visit will instill passion, hope, and opportunity for all Cubans to move slowly but surely toward a more normal life, more freedom of self expression and speech.

In this week’s address, President Obama discussed his upcoming trip to Cuba, a visit that the White House believes will further advance the progress made since the US and Cuba began normalizing relations more than a year ago. As I did when I met President Castro past year, I’ll speak candidly about our serious differences with the Cuban government, including on democracy and human rights.

Cuba has maintained that the full restoration of diplomatic relations between the two countries depends on the satisfactory resolution of issues like the blockade and Guantanamo.

While “change won’t come to Cuba overnight”, as the island “opens up, it will mean more opportunity and resources for ordinary Cubans”, Obama said.

“For more than 50 years, Cubans have been fleeing the Castro regime”, said Lehtinen, the longest-serving Cuban-American in Congress. “Yet the country which grants them refuge – the United States – has now chose to quite literally embrace their oppressors”.

Cuban Foreign Trade Minister Rodrigo Malmierca, in Washington for business talks, told The Associated Press that Obama’s visit will be good news for his country. “The state of civil and political rights in Cuba is imposed by a government that has no inclination to change things”. This is yet another reason for bay area leaders, including Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn, who has been cool to rapprochement with the Communist-led island, to work at every level to bring U.S.-Cuban relations into the modern era. Last April, the Obama administration removed Cuba from the U.S. State Sponsors of Terrorism List, and in July, the Cuban flag was raised over the embassy in Washington for the first time since 1961.

From Cuba, Obama will travel to Argentina, where he’ll meet with new President Mauricio Macri.

He will be the first American President since Calvin Coolidge in 1928 to visit Cuba. That policy has been followed by Democratic and Republican presidents since 1976, when former President Jimmy Carter chose to put an end to the times when USA presidents embraced dictators in Central and South America, and allowed US policy in the region to be dictated by United Fruit and other US corporations.