President Barack Obama‘s continued efforts to better the relationship between Cuba and the United States find him in Cuba today, making history as the first sitting U.S. president since Calvin Coolidge made the trip in 1928. Just over an hour ago, Air Force One touched down in Havana, Cuba, with POTUS, Michelle Obama, their two daughters and Barack’s mother-in-law on board. They were greeted Cuba’s foreign minister, Bruno Rodriguez, and Jeffrey DeLaurentis, the senior U.S. diplomat in Cuba, and you can watch a brief video recap of their historic arrival above, per the Washington Post.
In Cuba, though Obama has been open about being tentative with expectations, the president hopes to make progress with the liberalization of Cuban government, especially in the wake of the generational change in leadership, with Fidel and Raul Castro‘s reign in its final stages. Raul Castro has already revealed that he will be stepping down in 2018. During Obama’s visit, public demonstrations have been banned country-wide, and prior to Air Force One touching down, a group of dissidents had already gotten into a verbal altercation with security personnel, though the situation didn’t escalate past “shouting and manhandling,” per the Post.
