Inside President Obama's Trip to Cuba
Understand what the visit means from policymakers, experts, journalists, and others on Medium.
U.S. President Barack Obama heads to Havana on March 20 — the first time an American president will visit Cuba since 1928. Here's what Medium writers are saying about this historic trip and why it's so significant for both countries. We’ll update this post continually during the next week for the latest news and commentary.
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What U.S. Government Officials Say
From Havana, President Barack Obama explained his goals for the visit.
"I’ve come to Havana to extend the hand of friendship to the Cuban people.I’m here to bury the last vestige of the Cold War in the Americas and to forge a new era of understanding to help improve the daily lives of the Cuban people."
The White House’s Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes laid out the administration's new Cuba policy:
"For more than fifty years, the United States pursued a policy of isolating and pressuring Cuba. While the policy was rooted in the context of the Cold War, our efforts continued long after the rest of the world had changed.
Put simply, U.S. Cuba policy wasn’t working and was well beyond its expiration date."
He detailed Obama's schedule in Cuba from March 20–22, including a walking tour, a public address, meetings with officials, and a baseball game.
"President Obama will again have the opportunity to speak directly to the Cuban people with remarks at the Alicia Alonso Grand Theater, formerly known as the Gran Teatro de la Habana. His remarks in Havana will underscore that continued spirit of friendship, and lay out his vision for the future relationship between our two countries, and the extraordinary potential of the Cuban people."
Rhodes also published Obama's schedule en español:
The White House staff described how the two countries are resuming direct mail:
"The first flight carrying that first batch of U.S. direct mail to Cuba took off yesterday — a development that may please Ileana Yarza, a 76-year-old letter writer in Cuba who has been waiting for the President to visit for years. 'I think there are not many Cubans so eager as I to meet you in person,' she wrote on February 18. 'Not as an important American personality, but as a charming president whose open smile wins hearts.'"
And The White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest wrote shortly after the president landed in Havana, saying:
"For the President, this change in policy and this historic visit come down to his belief that the U.S. can help make a difference for the Cuban people. By changing the way Americans engage with Cubans, we can foster the hope they have for a future of their own making. The President’s policies are geared toward providing opportunity to the Cuban people, rather than isolating them as we had in the past."
Rhodes also posted photos of the trip:
Jason Goldman, White House chief digital officer, highlighted the president's meetings with entrepreneurs:
"At the entrepreneurship event, AirBnB CEO Brian Chesky shared how they are building upon the tradition of Cuban casa particulares (think Cuban bed and breakfasts) in order to introduce their service to the country. As a result, over 4,000 Cubans are already hosting guests. Companies like Stripe are making it possible for Cubans to easily incorporate U.S. companies, by helping them set up U.S. bank accounts in order to accept payments from customers around the world."
Rhodes also posted highlights from Obama's March 22 address.
Follow Obama's travels on The White House's Medium publication A Historic Trip to Cuba.
U.S. Senator Jeff Flake, who's joining Obama's delegation, wrote about the new era in U.S.-Cuba relations.
"There are some who do not fully appreciate the meaningfulness of this opening to Cuba. They maintain that we have somehow offered concessions to the Cuban government without benefit to the United States or to the Cuban people. Some contend that we have moved prematurely when human rights issues remain unresolved in Cuba.
To be clear, human rights abuses persist in Cuba. We all seek to remedy these abuses. Yet extending fifty years as the Cuban Government’s convenient scapegoat for the failure of socialism is unlikely to help to yield gains in human rights in the future, any more than our policies have done in the past."
U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp wrote about why she's joining the president's delegation.
"As I’ve long said, trade between the United States and Cuba is a fundamental step toward strengthening human rights in Cuba, which must remain a key goal as relations expand."
What Cuban Journalists Are Writing
Sergio Alejandro Gómez, international editor of Cuba’s government-run newspaper Granma, analyzed why the visit is happening now.
"Like the December 17 announcements, the news that Obama is traveling to Cuba has been received as a symbol of peace, as well as helping to deliver on an annual demand from the vast majority of countries worldwide in the UN General Assembly that ask for the embargo to be lifted.
It's hard to imagine other decisions by the U.S. government that manage to get such a unanimous and favorable judgement worldwide." [translation]
Rosa Miriam Elizalde, editor of Cubadebate, runs Desbloqueando Cuba, a Medium publication dedicated to explaining the new Cuba-U.S. relationship in Spanish. In one post, she interviews Cuba-U.S. policy expert Jesús Arboleya, who says:
"The most important thing about Obama's visit to Cuba aren't the anecdotal aspects that are always part of these trips, nor the relevant measures that are taken or the decisions that are always involved in these type of events, but rather it likely means the solidification of a unique moment in Cuba-U.S. relations." [translation]
ObamaInHavana is a publication gathering news and perspectives in Spanish about Obama's trip to the island.
The ObamaInHavana team interviewed Eduardo Torres Cuevas, a political scientist and the director of the National Library, who said:
"The rules of the game have changed, but not the game. That is to say, you can't lose sight of the goal: what we are and what they want us to be. And that decision has to come from the Cuban people but for that to happen, the Cuban people must be well informed. It's not just with propaganda."
The team also analyzed the video of Obama speaking to one of Cuba's most famous comedians that went viral ahead of the visit:
"This is the invasion of symbols, of implicit messages, of allusions, of spells of a policy honed in the art of communication used to seduce. The moment has arrived to prove to ourselves the cultural and historic lessons received over half a century…can help us unlock the games of high-level politics." [translation]
Jesús Adonis Martínez, a journalist and columnist for OnCuba magazine, wrote:
"Obama, who now fancies himself as a messenger of what's potentially to come, is about to arrive in a country at an existential crossroads. That's what both public and private prayers reveal — to bring change to this Island and voices that once again cry out for, as is the old habit, the discourse of the trenches and distrust at all costs.
Both extremes are symptoms of our inflammatory collective neurosis at a moment of awakening and social, economic, and — at least in the bilateral sense — political change." [translation]
Yisell Rodríguez Milán, a journalist and editor of Soy Cuba, wrote about how Cubans of her generation are reacting to the visit:
"Welcoming Obama hospitably to Havana is in fact a victory. Why reignite the confrontation that we know to be eternal? Cuba has planted its flag in more complicated situations and it's always said the truth, sometimes at the level of government and other times among the people…
Now, as Cubans my age are anxiously awaiting the first official visit of the North American president, they say they won't go to greet him at the airport because he's not a hero, [but] they ask me if I can get them tickets to the baseball game (as if I had some special power as a journalist).." [translation]
Randy Alonso Falcón, a journalist who runs Cubadebate, has been following the latest U.S. policy changes on Cuba on Medium. He writes:
"On March 11, Clinton's signature of the Helms-Burton Act turns 20 years old; one of the most disgraceful [moments] in the history of U.S.-Cuba relations, along with the Platt Amendment. Its repeal and the end of the embargo will be essential to normalizing relations between the two countries." [translation]
Richard Gutjahr published an interview with Cuban blogger Harold Cárdenas Lema, who said:
"We have to support the Obama administration in its mission to improve US-Cuban relations. I don’t know if we can ever have anything like normalcy. I mean, what’s normal after all? What I believe in is that our countries should have more respect for one another. Washington shouldn’t forget ordinary Cubans, and we in Cuba should acknowledge American values. It is up to our generation to bring the two sides back together again. It would make me very proud if I could tell my children that it was us who did that."
Yurisander Guevara, a blogger and journalist at Juventud Rebelde, came up with a list of all of the Spanish phrases Obama used during his trip.
Carlos Manuel Álvarez, writing for El Estornudo, wrote an analysis on how Cubans reacted to the visit.
"Some [Cubans] even suggested that there was no reason to bestow on Obama an obedient welcome, nor that we should miss out on the chance to stand up to him and defy him, something that only seems understandable if before we'd been capable of standing up to and defying our own leaders, but, since we haven't, we have no right nor the morale to stand up to anybody." [translation]
Policy Experts Give Important Context
James Williams, president of the Engage Cuba coalition, wrote a series of posts ahead of the trip. In one, he breaks down what to expect from the visit.
"Significant change is underway in Cuba. Private entrepreneurship is burgeoning, public Wi-Fi hotspots are sprouting up, citizens and residents can purchase and sell property, and civil society activity is expanding. As the President and First Lady — along with an entourage of correspondents — tour Havana, they will undoubtedly take note that Cuba is in an important moment of flux."
Sarah Stephens, executive director of Center for Democracy in the Americas (CDA), gives historical context about how much things have changed in the U.S.-Cuba relationship.
"Under previous presidents, Cuba policy reforms were offered, given, or taken away based on subjective and political assessments of Havana’s behavior, not on a clear-eyed vision of the U.S. national interest. This had the perverse impact of allowing Cuba’s government to determine U.S. foreign policy while also subjecting the intended beneficiaries of Cuba policy reforms, the Cuban people, to the intermittent mood swings of American politics."
Eric Olson, associate director of the Latin American program at The Wilson Center, explains what the Obama administration hopes to achieve.
"With U.S. elections just around the corner and Obama’s time in office closing soon, there is a sense that Obama has limited time to ensure his new policy is irreversible. The possibility of policy reversal under the next President is not considered likely among the President’s team, but it is clearly on everyone’s mind as well. There is little in the current state of U.S.-Cuban relations that could not be overturned by an incoming president committed to reversing course again."
Ted Henken, an academic and Cuba expert, pointed out what Obama should avoid:
However, this means Obama’s trip can’t be a shallow photo-op exclusively with government leaders or a “fun” celebrity show a la Rihanna. Obama must take advantage of the visit to stand up forcefully and unapologetically (if respectfully) for American values (a free press, human rights, representative government) and make clear to the Cuban people that our engagement with the Island is aimed primarily at making their daily lives “un poco más fácil” (a little bit easier) in terms of bread and butter issues (starting with entrepreneurship and Internet but including salaries, housing, and the price of food).
Henken also analyzed the achievements of the visit, writing:
"Cubans can now make no mistake. They have seen and heard directly that the goal of Obama — the president of Cuba’s supposed archenemy — is none other than to build bridges of economic collaboration, telecom exchange, and mutual understanding. If they remain poor, marginalized, and internally blockaded more than 15 months since December 17, 2014, they will draw their own conclusions about who is to blame for their continued isolation and frustration.
Without a foreign scapegoat to blame and lacking any outside savior to “protect” them, it will become increasingly clear to everyone that the solution to Cuba’s many and complex internal problems must come from within the Cuban nation and through a robust, broadly inclusive, and respectful dialogue among Cubans themselves."
American University's SchoolPublicAffairs Professor William LeoGrande noted in a Q&A:
"Even a majority of Cuban-Americans support what the president is doing. And you can see that American businesses are chomping at the bit to get into Cuba — to get into this market that has been closed to them now for half a century. This opening to Cuba is supported all across Latin America. Any Republican president that decided they were going to roll this back would be acting against the views of the American people, against the views of Cuban-Americans, against the views of American businesses, and against the views of our allies in Latin America; and that just doesn’t make sense."
Cubans in the Diaspora
Eduardo Suastegui, a Cuban living in the U.S., wrote about why the visit is so personal:
"As someone who grew up in Communist Cuba, suffered some of the political oppression it dishes out, finally coming to the U.S. in 1980’s Mariel Boatlift, I wish this opening had come in a different form. I wish the current administration had pressed harder for improvements in human rights for Cubans. I wish the road to engagement had included the buy-in of Congress, to, among other things, present a unified front and lift the embargo.
But I will trust and pray for those things to come. Their absence doesn’t change the fact that, regardless of our apprehensions and the imperfections of current proceedings, it’s time."
Ellie Kaufman writes about coming to terms with her identity as a Cuban American, and how Obama's visit is hitting home.
"I’ve been waiting too. For a dictatorship disguised as communism to shift gears. For an evangelical democracy to stop hiding behind a policy of doing nothing with the feigned purpose of inciting change. For a chance to go home, for a country that is a part of me to have a promising future, for its people — my people — to have a better life…
But hope needs fuel to keep it going. And after 54 years of waiting, it’s about time."
Patricia Alejandro, a Cuban living in the U.S. writes about why dialogue between everyday people matters so much.
"As more and more Americans go to Cuba and interact with the Cuban people, the conversations that demonstrate the different narratives on both sides and within them will have been shaped by the narratives from their respective media and governments…
Maybe we’ll disagree, maybe we’ll speak at times going past each other, failing to listen to where we are coming from. But in this grueling exercise, if both sides are willing to listen with curiosity and doubt, new understandings and practices are born. And this, I believe, is one way to really help the Cuban people, and ourselves in the process."
Alyssa Garcia writes about her mixed feelings about Obama's visit, saying:
"As a Cuban American, I want nothing more for the land of my ancestors to be able to prosper again, but it should be done so in a way that reflects genuine institutional change and progress, not just a superficial approach to foreign policy that ignores decades of suffering and deplorable governance."
Views from Medium Users
Narciso Fay explained why the visit matters for the next U.S. administration.
Obama’s trip to Cuba is turning out to be positive. I think it will be an attempt to speed up change, so that the next resident of the White House — if he’s Republican — finds the situation so progressed that it’s way too hard to go back. [translation]
NY Havana Blog is aggregating the latest Cuba news in English, including details about Obama’s trip.
Juan Manuel Cabiedas, a Mexican priest who has lived in Cuba, wrote:
“We hope that these unprecedented events transform resignation so that the natural course of things extinguish the embers of decades of unmet promises, through the visible strength of a people who transform their disappointments into the drive for peaceful but sustained and resounding achievements of a new time, a new social order, a new Cuba.” [translation]
For Those Who Want to Go to Cuba, Too
Matt Murphy wrote about his experience visiting Cuba, and tips for Americans wishing to visit the island.
Laura Weidman Powers has a four-part series on tips for Americans traveling to Cuba.
And Travel + Leisure explained how to use points to fly to the island.
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