Why Obama knows his Cuba visit must happen now
President Obama will visit Cuba in late March, the White House announced on Thursday 鈥� a historic trip intended to help thaw a geopolitical relationship frozen in mutual mistrust since the beginning of the cold war.
To the administration, the two-day trip is a logical extension of Mr. Obama鈥檚 Cuban outreach, one of his most significant foreign policy achievements. Last year, the two nations reopened embassies in Havana and Washington for the first time since Dwight Eisenhower was president. Obama and Cuban leader Ra煤l Castro have agreed to restore commercial air travel and reopen other monetary and business ties.
Congress has yet to act on Cuba鈥檚 most-desired change, however: a lifting of the US economic embargo imposed in 1960. Many Republicans resist rapprochement with an oppressive communist regime that continues to imprison dissidents and control what Cubans read and see in the media.
The White House position is that the embargo has had a long time to work, and it hasn鈥檛. The old animosities have been in place for years, and the Castro brothers remain in power. Why not try a new approach? Open people-to-people exchanges, allow US cash from Cuban-Americans to flow back to relatives in greater amounts, reestablish diplomatic relations to reopen official dialogue.
Engagement is a better tool than isolation, said Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes in a Thursday briefing for reporters.
鈥淲e will be in a better position to support human rights and to support a better life for the Cuban people by engaging them and raising these issues directly,鈥� Mr. Rhodes said.
Obama will speak with dissidents and other antigovernment Cubans, according to administration officials. When he travels around the world, he often meets with US-selected representatives of a nation鈥檚 civil society, and the Cuba trip won鈥檛 be any different, said Rhodes.
Obama will be the first sitting US president to visit Cuba per se since Calvin Coolidge in 1928. President Harry Truman landed at the US-controlled Guantanamo Bay naval base on the southeastern coast of the island in 1948. Jimmy Carter has visited Cuba a number of times during his peripatetic ex-presidency.
First lady Michelle Obama will accompany her husband on the visit. It鈥檚 as yet unknown whether the first daughters will go along.
By traveling to Cuba with about a year left in his presidency, Obama hopes to continue to influence how relations between the two nations continue to unfold in coming months. A later visit would have just been a 鈥渧acation,鈥� Rhodes said. This trip is intended to push the Cubans to make such changes as additional access to wireless Internet and greater economic freedom for the self-employed.
The administration knows well that the fate of its Cuba policy rests upon the presidential vote a few months hence. Both Sens. Ted Cruz (R) of Texas and Marco Rubio (R) of Florida are sons of Cuban immigrants. Both have vowed to reverse Obama鈥檚 Cuba opening if elected.
At a town hall in South Carolina on Thursday, Senator Cruz said that Obama was making a mistake by visiting a Cuba that isn鈥檛 yet free.
Obama will 鈥渆ssentially act as an apologist鈥� for the Castro regime by visiting the country now, Cruz said.
But the administration sees it differently. Officials frame engagement as a threat to the Castro regime, not a reward. By moving as fast as they can, White House aides hope to make the policy change 鈥渋rreversible,鈥� Rhodes said.
鈥淭hat means that we want links between Cubans and Americans, and the links between our businesses and the engagement between our countries to gain such momentum that there鈥檚 an inevitability to the opening that is taking place, and to the increase in activity between our countries,鈥� the deputy national security adviser said.
