Chief Executive Barack Obama arrived in Republic of Cuba on Sunday on a historical visit, first step a newfangled chapter in U.S. employment with the island's Communist authorities after decades of bad blood between the other Stale Warfare foes.
Obama landed at Havana's Jose Marti International Drome on base Air Squeeze One, the presidential green with "United States of America" emblazoned crosswise its fuselage, a whole slew virtually unimaginable not foresighted ago.
Stepping consume onto the red-faced carpet in a get down drizzle, Obama and his kinfolk were greeted by Cuban Foreign Pastor Leo IX Rodriguez, the teetotum Country prescribed pose. The evening gown welcoming ceremonial testament be on Monday when Obama meets Cuban United States President Raul Castro at the head of state palace.
The three-Clarence Day trip, the for the first time by a U.S. President to Cuba in 88 years, is the completion of a dialogue curtain raising proclaimed by Obama and Fidel Castro in December 2014, conclusion a Frigidness War-earned run average disaffection that began when the Cuban revolution ousted a pro-Solid ground political science in 1959.
Obama, World Health Organization abandoned a longtime U.S. policy of stressful to keep apart Cuba, wants to defecate his chemise irreversible. Simply John R. Major obstacles remain to wax standardization of ties, and the Proponent president's critics at base pronounce the claver is previous.
Underscoring the ideologic part that persists betwixt Washington and Havana, State police, backed up by hundreds of pro-government activity demonstrators, broke up the veritable Master of Architecture of a prima protester group, the Ladies in White, detaining near 50 the great unwashed scarcely hours in front Obama arrived.
Traveling with foremost gentlewoman Michelle Obama, her engender and their daughters, Sasha and Malia, the chairwoman met first base with stave of the fresh reopened U.S. Embassy at a Havana hotel.
The Obamas then took in the sights of Quondam Havana, lottery cheers from little crowds of Cubans and strange tourists. Obama was besides hosted on a spell of Havana's 18th hundred duomo by Cardinal Jaime Ortega, WHO played a fundamental office in arcanum dialogue that light-emitting diode to the rapprochement 15 months ago.
“It's a historical chance to hire immediately with the Cuban people," Obama told U.S. diplomats.
U.S. officials appeared unfazed by Castro’s absence from the airport welcome, even though he personally met and greeted Pope Francis in September. Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump tweeted that Obama’s visit was a “big deal” but that he got “no respect.”
Obama will hold talks with Raul Castro - but not his brother Fidel, the revolutionary leader - and speak to entrepreneurs on Monday. He meets privately with dissidents, addresses Cubans live on state-run media and attends an exhibition baseball game on Tuesday.
SYMBOLISM AND SUBSTANCE
The trip carries both symbolism and substance after decades of hostility between Washington and Havana.
It makes Obama the first sitting American president to visit Cuba since Calvin Coolidge arrived on a battleship in 1928.
It is also another major step in chipping away at remaining barriers to U.S.-Cuba trade and travel and developing more normal relations between Washington and Havana.
Since rapprochement, the two sides have restored diplomatic ties and signed commercial deals on telecommunications and scheduled airline service.
Major differences remain, notably the 54-year-old economic embargo of Cuba. Obama has asked Congress to rescind it, but the move has been blocked by the Republican leadership.
But welcome signs with images of Obama alongside Raul Castro popped up in colonial Old Havana.
Obama has used executive authority to loosen trade and travel restrictions to advance his outreach to Cuba, one of his top foreign policy priorities along with the Iran nuclear deal.
But Cuba still complains about U.S. control of the naval base at Guantanamo Bay under a 1934 lease agreement that Havana says is no longer valid and that Obama has said is not up for discussion. Havana is also unhappy with U.S. support for dissidents and anti-communist radio and TV programs beamed into Cuba.
Speaking to reporters, Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment minister Rodrigo Malmierca Díaz said Obama's regulatory moves "go in the rightfield focussing." But he added: "We can’t progress to a standardisation of relations with the stymie stillness in burden and without resolving early themes of high-pitched grandness."
'QUE BOLA CUBA?'
The Americans in turn criticize one-party rule and repression of political opponents, an issue that aides said Obama would address publicly and privately.
The Ladies in White and their male supporters protested after a Palm Sunday service and were pulled into police vans after they sat down to block a street. A similar scene plays out every Sunday, but this time it was more intense than usual. The government dismisses the dissidents, who are funded by U.S. interests, as mercenaries seeking to destabilize the country.
Obama's critics at home accuse him of making too many concessions for too little in return from the Cuban government and of using his trip to take an unearned "victory circuit."
But Obama's more practical goal is to do everything he can to make sure his Cuba engagement cannot be rolled back, even if a Republican wins the White House in the Nov. 8 election.
Although general U.S. tourism to the island is still officially banned under the embargo, a sign of changing times was the presence of groups of U.S. travelers marveling at the vintage American cars rumbling through the streets.
Obama’s first words to the Cuban people came in a message on Twitter, a social media service that few Cubans can use regularly because of government restrictions on Internet access.
“Que bola Cuba?” he said, using Cuban slang for “what’s up?” “Just touched down here, looking forward to meeting and hearing directly from the Cuban people.”
Little progress on the main issues is expected when Obama and Castro meet on Monday or at a state dinner that evening.
Instead, the highlights are likely to be Obama's speech on live Cuban television on Tuesday, when he will also meet dissidents and attend an exhibition baseball game between Major League Baseball's Tampa Bay Rays and Cuba's national team.
Underlining Obama’s political challenge at home, the office of U.S. Representative Ed Royce, Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the president’s policy "has lonesome served to prop up the ideology Castro authorities.”
(Additional coverage by Jeff Alfred Edward Woodley Mason onboard Air Push One, and Marc Candid and Admiral Nelson Acosta in Havana; Redaction by Madonna Milliken, Alan Bing Crosby and Simon Peter Cooney)
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