Obama Opens Doors to Cuba

President Obama Delivers a Statement on Cuba

On December 17, 2014, President Obama delivered remarks on next steps he’s taking to chart a new course on U.S.-Cuba relations.

Obama opens doors to Cuba after 56 years

What started out as a proposed prisoner swap between the United States and Cuba turned into a historic shift in relations between the two countries, one devised during secret meetings abroad and resulting in the re-establishment of diplomatic relations after more than five decades.

The two countries, separated by just 90 miles of water, once had the world on the brink of nuclear war, an episode that prompted 50 years of a U.S. economic embargo on the island and anti-American rage from Cuban President Fidel Castro. Now, the countries are preparing to open embassies in each other’s capitals and increase the flow of people and capital between them.

At the White House on Wednesday, President Obama called the move an end to “an outdated approach that, for decades, has failed to advance our interests.” In Havana, Cuban President Raúl Castro, who took over the country when his brother fell ill in 2008, welcomed the new ties to the United States while acknowledging numerous issues remained.

The deal was finalized when two Americans had returned home from Cuban prisons. One was Alan Gross, a Maryland man who spent more than five years in a Cuban prison after he was arrested while distributing communications equipment on the island while working for the U.S. Agency for International Development. The second was described as an “intelligence asset” who had spent more than 20 years in Cuban prisons, according to three senior White House officials who were not authorized to speak publicly.

In exchange, three Cubans who had been convicted of espionage and other charges in the United States were sent home.

But the agreement will resonate far beyond Wednesday’s flights, as Secretary of State John Kerry prepares for his first trip to Cuba and both sides work out the long list of changes they have agreed to make.

“This is the biggest shift in U.S.-Cuba relations in 50 years,” said Ric Herrero, executive director of #CubaNow, which has advocated that empowering Cubans is the quickest way to a downfall of the Cuban regime.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2014/12/17/obama-cuba-alan-gross-prisoner/20526497/