Obama says Cuba visit will boost efforts to restore US ties

Plans for the presidential visit could also coincide with a trip by a Major League Baseball team, given the island’s passion for the sport.

While normalizing relations, Obama said his administration promises to monitor Cuba’s communist government on human rights issues.

The Colombian government and the FARC rebel group are expected to finalize a peace deal by March 23 in Havana that would end a 50-year civil war in the South American nation. Paul Brady, Conde Nast Traveler’s consumer news editor, joins CBSN with details.

“…Obama will be welcomed by the government of Cuba and the Cuban people with our traditional hospitality. I think the president instead ought to be pushing for a free Cuba”, he said.

Mindful of the USA presidential elections, the White House planned the visit in March, giving the relationship more time to make progress while Obama is in office.

The two nations made a surprise announcement in December 2014 that they would move to reopen ties.

Obama’s visit will also include a bilateral meeting with Raul Castro, the president of Cubawho came into power in 2008. On Tuesday the USA and Cuba agreed to restore commercial air traffic, ABC notes. Still, while Obama has long expressed an interest in visiting Cuba, White House officials had said the visit wouldn’t occur unless and until the conditions were right.

Obama first announced the trip in a post on Twitter, and the news of his visit was later confirmed by White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest.

“That is why President Obama is traveling to Cuba”, Rhodes explained. “These are two countries who have confronted each other for fifty something years, and on this occasion the visit of the US president to Cuba is reason for happiness and rejoicing”, he said.

Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican who was born in Cuba, calls the visit “absolutely shameful”.

This visit “is another demonstration of the president’s commitment to chart a new course for U.S.-Cuban relations and connect U.S. and Cuban citizens through expanded travel, commerce, and access to information”, it added.

“For Cubans accustomed to watching their government sputter down the last mile of socialism in a ’57 Chevy, imagine what they’ll think when they see Air Force One”, said Senator Flake.

“It’s a good move, because President Obama represents the (most) powerful country in the world”, supporter Luis Medina said.

Officials didn’t say what specific recent changes cleared the way for the trip. Earlier this week, the United States and Cuba signed an arrangement that will allow American-owned airline companies to provide regularly scheduled commercial flights from the U.S.to Cuba, as opposed to chartered flights granted only for authorized travel.