WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is planning an historic visit to Cuba in the coming weeks, senior Obama administration officials said Wednesday, becoming the first president to step foot on the island in nearly nine decades.
Obama’s brief visit will be part of a broader trip to Latin America that the White House will announce today, said the officials. The visit is expected to take place in mid-March, one official said.
Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro announced in late 2014 that they would begin normalizing ties after a half-century of Cold War opposition. The Obama administration is eager to make rapid progress on building trade and diplomatic ties with Cuba before Obama leaves office.
The two nations signed a deal Tuesday restoring commercial air traffic for the first time in five decades. Immediately after signing the commercial flights deal, the U.S. Department of Transportation opened bidding by American air carriers on as many as 110 U.S.-Cuba flights a day — more than five times the current number. All flights operating between the two countries today are charters.
President Calvin Coolidge went to Havana in January 1928 to give a speech to the 6th International Conference of American States, according to the State Department historian’s office, which records the foreign travel of presidents and secretaries of state.
