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Obama, in Havana Speech, Says Cuba Has Nothing to Fear From U.S. Obama, in Havana Speech, Says Cuba Has Nothing to Fear From U.S.
(about 1 hour later)
HAVANA — President Obama on Tuesday made a full-throated call for change and greater openness in Cuba’s autocratic government, making a direct plea to President Raúl Castro to loosen his grip on the economy and political expression or risk squandering the fruits of a historic thaw. HAVANA — President Obama on Tuesday made a full-throated plea for Cuba’s autocratic government to change, calling on President Raúl Castro to loosen his grip on the economy and political expression or risk squandering the fruits of a historic thaw.
“It’s time to lift the embargo, but even if we lifted the embargo tomorrow, Cubans would not realize their potential without continued change here in Cuba,” Mr. Obama said, in a speech here that was broadcast live in Cuba. “If you can’t access information online, if you cannot be exposed to different points of view, you will not reach your full potential, and over time the youth will lose hope.” Likening the United States and Cuba to long-estranged brothers struggling to break free from a bitter past, Mr. Obama invoked the conflicted history of American imperialism, Cuban revolution and Cold War isolation that has long divided the two nations.
Addressing Mr. Castro, who listened raptly from a balcony in Havana’s Grand Theater, Mr. Obama said that Cuba had nothing to fear from the United States, even as he made a passionate argument for democracy and free-market principles. “I have come here to bury the last remnant of the Cold War in the Americas,” Mr. Obama said on the stage of the Grand Theater of Havana, the same building where Calvin Coolidge, the last sitting American president to visit Cuba, spoke 88 years ago. “I have come here to extend the hand of friendship to the Cuban people.”
“I want you to know I believe my visit here demonstrates you do not need to fear a threat from the United States,” Mr. Obama said to Mr. Castro. “I am also confident that you need not fear the different voices of the Cuban people.” Speaking directly to Mr. Castro, who watched from a balcony in the ornate Spanish colonial-style hall, Mr. Obama said the United States had no intention of imposing its economic or political principles on Cuba. But he also called on the Cuban president to embrace the kinds of changes he has long resisted.
Delivered in the same building where Calvin Coolidge, the last sitting American president to visit Cuba, spoke 88 years ago, the speech was a striking moment in Mr. Obama’s push to clear away a half-century of hostility and isolation between the United States and Cuba, perhaps the final major foreign policy achievement of his presidency. “I want you to know, I believe my visit here demonstrates that you do not need to fear a threat from the United States,” Mr. Obama said. “And given your commitment to Cuba’s sovereignty and self-determination, I’m also confident that you need not fear the different voices of the Cuban people and their capacity to speak and assemble and vote for their leaders.”
“I have come here to bury the last remnant of the Cold War in the Americas,” the president said. “I have come here to extend a hand of friendship to the Cuban people.” The speech was a striking element of a presidential visit packed with extraordinary firsts: an American president speaking directly to Cuba’s people, in remarks that were broadcast live, as Cuba’s own president looked on.
Mr. Obama drew some of the loudest applause when he told the audience he had asked Congress to rescind the trade embargo with Cuba and when he proclaimed it was time to “leave behind the ideological battles of the past.” It came a day after the two leaders had another remarkable encounter, holding frank talks at the Palace of the Revolution and then spending 55 minutes answering questions from the news media. Mr. Obama prodded Mr. Castro, clearly uncomfortable being placed on the spot by journalists, to engage in a give-and-take that is a hallmark of American democracy.
Benjamin J. Rhodes, Mr. Obama’s deputy national security adviser who led the secret talks that forged the thaw 15 months ago, said the speech was the president’s opportunity to place the changes and debate that have followed in context, particularly for Cubans here and in the United States. “Having removed the shadow of history from our relationship, I must speak honestly about the things that I believe, the things that we as Americans believe,” Mr. Obama said in his speech on Tuesday, addressing the Cuban people. “I can’t force you to agree, but you should know what I think.”
Mr. Obama visited Cuba to cement a policy shift toward normalization that he hopes will outlast his presidency. He was accompanied by more than three dozen members of Congress who support the policy and several business leaders eager to take advantage of it through new commercial deals.
But he made clear in the speech that the engagement could not be successful unless Cuba evolves, opening its economy and its political system.
“It’s time to lift the embargo, but even if we lifted the embargo tomorrow, Cubans would not realize their potential without continued change here in Cuba,” Mr. Obama said. “If you can’t access information online, if you cannot be exposed to different points of view, you will not reach your full potential, and over time the youth will lose hope.”
Mr. Obama drew loud applause, including from Mr. Castro, and a standing ovation when he said he had asked Congress to rescind the trade embargo with Cuba, proclaiming that it was time to “leave behind the ideological battles of the past.”
At other points, including when Mr. Obama spoke passionately about the virtues of democracy, much of the audience sat silent, though there were short bursts of applause in pockets of the hall.
Mr. Obama hopes to make the opening with Cuba a part of his legacy, akin to Richard M. Nixon’s 1972 trip to China. Tuesday’s speech drew comparisons to Ronald Reagan’s 1987 speech at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, where he famously challenged the Soviet leader, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, to “tear down this wall.”
Mr. Obama put a twist on that comparison, quoting the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to invoke the “fierce urgency of now” in appealing to a new generation.
“Many suggested that I come here and ask the people of Cuba to tear something down,” Mr. Obama said. “But I’m appealing to the young people of Cuba who will lift something up, build something new.”