Obama's historic trip to Cuba rife with risk, opportunity

Obama's historic trip to Cuba rife with risk, opportunity
By JOSH LEDERMAN and JULIE PACE

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama will open a new era in the
United States' thorny relationship with Cuba during a history-making
trip that has two seemingly dissonant goals: locking in his softer
approach while also pushing the island's communist leaders to change
their ways.

Obama's 2½ day visit starting Sunday will be a crowning moment for the
ambitious diplomatic experiment that he and President Raul Castro's
government announced barely a year ago. After a half-century of
acrimony, the two former Cold War foes are now in regular contact.
American travelers and businesses are eagerly eyeing opportunities on
the island nation 90 miles (145 kilometers) south of Florida.

Joined by his family, Obama will stroll the streets of Old Havana and
meet with Castro in his presidential offices — images unimaginable just
a few years ago. He will sit in the stands with baseball-crazed Cubans
for a historic game between their beloved national team and Major League
Baseball's Tampa Bay Rays.

Obama also will meet with political dissidents. Their experiences in the
one-party state help explain why some Cuban-Americans see Obama's
outreach as a disgraceful embrace of a government whose practices and
values betray much of what America stands for. Increasingly, though,
that's becoming a minority view among Cuban-Americans, as well as the
broader U.S. population.

White House officials are mindful that Obama cannot appear to gloss over
deep and persistent differences. Even as the president works toward
better ties, his statements alongside Castro and dissidents will be
scrutinized for signs of how aggressively he is pushing the Havana
government to fulfill promises of reform.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez rebuked Obama ahead of the trip
for suggesting that he would use the visit to promote change. Rodriguez
said that many of Obama's policy changes have essentially been
meaningless, and he dismissed the notion that Obama was in any position
to empower Cubans.

"The Cuban people empowered themselves decades ago," Rodriguez said,
referring to the 1959 revolution that put the current government in
power. He said if Obama was preoccupied with empowering Cubans,
"something must be going wrong in U.S. democracy."

Obama's aides and supporters in Congress brushed off such tough talk
from Cuban officials. They argue that decades of a U.S. policy of
isolation that failed to bring about change in Cuba illustrated why
engaging with the island is worthwhile.

Yet Obama's opponents insist he is rewarding a government that has yet
to show it is serious about improving human rights and opening up its
economy and political system. Though Obama has been rolling back
restrictions on Cuba through regulatory moves, he has been unable to
persuade Congress to lift the U.S. trade embargo, a chief Cuban demand.

"To this day, this is a regime that provides safe harbor to terrorists
and to fugitives," said Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan.
"Unfortunately, it is doubtful that the president will bring up the need
for reform during his visit."

Two years after taking power in 2008, Raul Castro launched economic and
social reforms that appear slow-moving to many Cubans and foreigners,
but are lasting and widespread within Cuban society. The changes have
allowed hundreds of thousands of people to work in the private sector
and have relaxed limits on cellphones, Internet and Cubans' comfort with
discussing their country's problems in public, for example.

The Cuban government has been unyielding, however, on making changes to
its single-party political system and to the strict limits on media,
public speech, assembly and dissent.

While in Havana, Obama will attend a state dinner in his honor and lay a
wreath at a memorial to Jose Marti, a Cuban independence hero. He will
give a speech at the Grand Theater of Havana — carried on Cuban
television. White House aides said Obama will lay out a vision of
greater freedoms and economic opportunity.

Ahead of his trip, Obama announced moves to further lift U.S.
restrictions on Cuba, including easing travel restrictions for Americans
and restoring Cuba's access to the global financial system. Cuba has
been slower to approve U.S. businesses operating in Cuba and to take
other steps sought by the U.S. But Cuba did announce plans to lift a 10
percent conversion fee on U.S. dollars.

The jubilation that surged through Cuba in the early days of detente has
been tempered by the absence of tangible improvement in most people's
lives. Obama is well-regarded in Cuba, and though his trip has spurred
excitement in the country, few Cubans expect to see Obama in person. The
Castro government has announced a virtual shutdown of Havana during
Obama's stay.

"I don't think things are going to improve here," said Rosa Lopez,
52-year-old food stand worker. Gesturing at her worn-out sandals and
soft drinks for sale, she added, "All this is here, in this country, and
the United States is way over there."

Obama's trip comes in the midst of a heated U.S. presidential election
in which his willingness to talk to America's foes — not only Cuba, but
also Iran — has been a focus.

Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton has embraced much of his foreign
policy agenda, including the Cuba opening. But Republican candidates
describe Obama's outreach to Castro as part of a pattern of naïve
overtures to enemies that has yielded little in return.

Against that backdrop, Obama aims to avoid glaring missteps that could
make a rollback of his Cuba policy more palatable to Americans. He hopes
a successful trip will make that impossible, even if a Republican is
elected in November.

"We very much want to make the process of normalization irreversible,"
said Ben Rhodes, Obama's deputy national security adviser.

___

Associated Press writer Michael Weissenstein in Havana contributed to
this report.

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