Obama says his Cuba visit will help improve lives of Cuban people
WASHINGTON — President Obama said Thursday he would travel to Cuba next month "to advance our progress and efforts that can improve the lives of the Cuban people."
Obama made the trip official in a series of tweets Thursday morning, touting "significant progress" in resuming diplomatic relations with the communist nation in the 14 months since he announced the breakthrough.
"We still have differences with the Cuban government that I will raise directly. America will always stand for human rights around the world," Obama said on Twitter.
The two-day Cuba trip will begin March 21, followed by another two-day trip to Argentina, the White House said Thursday. First Lady Michelle Obama will accompany the president on both trips.
The exact schedule of the trip hasn't been set, but Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said Obama would meet with Cuban President Raul Castro, but not his brother, the former president Fidel Castro. The United States also insisted to the Cuban government that Obama should be able to also meet with dissidents.
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"This is part of how the president does business," Rhodes said. "So we may have a complex history but you know, the fact that we meet with and support people who are seeking to have their voices heard is part of what the United States does. And that doesn't mean that we're seeking to overthrow the Cuban government, it means that we're seeking to support basic universal values that, again, we would care about in any country."
In an interview with Yahoo News last year, Obama said he would only visit Cuba if he could say with confidence "that we're seeing some progress in the liberty and freedom and possibilities of ordinary Cubans."
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Rhodes argued that the progress Obama wanted to see is already happening.
"The increased travel benefits the nascent Cuban private sector, the cuenta-propistas (entrepreneurs), shop owners, restaurant owners, U.S. companies like Airbnb have gone into Cuba. This is their fastest growing market. That means travelers staying directly in Cuban homes, benefiting the Cuban people," Rhodes said. "These are just some indications of the fact that increased trade, commerce and travel is going to benefit U.S. companies that are very interested in operating in Cuba, but ultimately, it's going to directly benefit the Cuban people."