Obama to address Cuban people in Havana speech

To wrap up his visit, President Obama will attend a baseball game between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cuban national team.

“When they’re engaged with the American people, they have greater access to information, they have greater access to different resources, different points of view”, Rhodes said.

From the 1960s until a just over a year ago Americans were mostly banned from tourism, trade and investment with the island barely 90 miles (145 kilometers) south of Florida. “We need to develop relationships with the people in Cuba so we know who to do business with and who actually makes the deals”.

Gross backed the Obama administration’s move to help ease economic restrictions but lamented USA lawmakers’ inaction to lift sanctions on Cuba.

The Obama administration previously loosened requirements by allowing organized trips without advance USA permission and independent travel for specific purposes like religious activities or sporting events.

“By establishing new trade partnerships in Cuba, we have a real opportunity to grow our agricultural economy and create more good-paying manufacturing jobs in IL”, said Congresswoman Bustos. Instead, he said, it would “give important benefits to Cuban nationals looking to live and work in the United States without forcing them to make the decision to defect to the United States”. Numerous existing tours have evolved into a formulaic itinerary that can be heavily influenced by Cuban state-run companies, involving a relatively closed circle of architects, performers, economists and organic farmers who cycle through US tour groups, often receiving money for the visits. Embassies have re-opened, US companies can now manufacture in Cuba and commercial flights are to begin within months.

A communiqué issued by the US Commerce Department confirmed that Pritzker will come to Cuba with a group of entrepreneurs, like Arne Sorenson, executive president of the Marriott International hotel chain, and Ursula Burns, executive president of Xerox.

Mr Obama’s critics have accused him of giving up too much in return for too little from Cuban leaders and of now taking a premature “victory lap”. As a member of Congress in both the House and the Senate over the last decade, he has made almost a dozen trips to the island nation, he said.

“This is what historic change looks like”, Williams said in a statement.

Obama will on Sunday become the first United States president in 88 years to visit Cuba, a trip his advisors say will be heavily focused on taking his message to the public.

Meanwhile hundreds of workers have been scrambling for days to touch up building facades, patch potholes and spiff up Havana’s monuments ahead of Mr Obama’s visit.