President Obama to visit Cuba in coming weeks

A National Security Council official plans to make an announcement Thursday at a White House briefing, according to Reuters.

“A visit by President Obama more than one year after his unilateral concessions to the regime will only legitimize the Castros’ repressive behavior”, she said.

President Obama’s real motivation for restoring diplomatic relations with Cuba is becoming more apparent.

“We can confirm that the administration will announce the President’s travel to Latin America, including Cuba, in the coming weeks”, a senior administration official said.

ABC News first reported the president’s upcoming trip on Wednesday evening. Obama and Castro first announced plans to resume diplomatic ties and a prisoner swap following secret Vatican-brokered talks in December 2014.

“14 months ago, I announced that we would begin normalizing relations with Cuba – and we’ve already made significant progress”, Obama tweeted. “These are two countries who have confronted each other for fifty something years, and on this occasion the visit of the USA president to Cuba is reason for happiness and rejoicing”, he said. There is still deep opposition to restoring relations with Cuba, especially among the several Cuban-American members of the House and Senate and several of the Republican presidential candidates. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, both of Cuban descent, have strongly criticised the move to extend ties with a nation that hasn’t seen political change in decades.

“Probably not going to invite me”, he said. Fidel Castro, and now his brother Raul, have ruled Cuba for more than a half century, proudly denouncing the United States as an imperial hegemon. They come to the US, steal money, engage in Medicare fraud and then go back to Cuba.

The last sitting U.S. President to visit Cuba was Calvin Coolidge in 1928.

Last summer, Cuba reopened its embassy in Washington and Secretary of State John Kerry traveled to Havana to raise the American flag over the USA embassy there for the first time in 54 years. President Truman visited Guantanamo Bay, which is controlled by the United States, so that was not considered a visit to the country; he didn’t meet with any Cuban government officials, according to his presidential library.