Early this month, the Cuban government claimed Barack Obama was not doing enough to end the US trade embargo against the island despite his promise to improve ties. Regardless of Cuban Foreign Minister's statement of the embargo being "obsolete and unacceptable," the US president extended it for one more year and made it clear that the ban would only come down if Cuba were willing to free political prisoners and improve human rights.
However, in a sign of thawing relations, he has eased travel restrictions for Americans wanting to visit Cuba and the two countries are holding direct talks on immigration.
Now recently, it appears that a senior American diplomat has held high-level talks with the Cuban government in Havana. The talks between the two nations were the first of their kind in years.
Cuba's President Raul Castro has previously said he is prepared to negotiate with the Obama administration, providing there are no preconditions. His brother, former President Fidel Castro, also last week praised Mr Obama for his commitment to tackling climate change.
The tense relation between these two countries is not at all recent, the conflict goes back to the mid-XX Century; their different ideologies make it apparently impossible to have a better relationship than the one they already have. I, for one, don't think President Obama, or any future American president for that matter, will remove the embargo if Cuba refuses to change its entire country's way of thinking. Communism has been one of America's foes for a long time, and Cuba is no exception.
Sources:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8281756.stm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuba_–_United_States_relations
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8260104.stm
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