http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/03/21/cuba-m21.html
By Alexander Fangmann
21 March 2016
>President Barack Obama traveled to Cuba on Sunday, leading an enormous US delegation that has been reported as comprising as many as 1,200 people, large enough to be described with some justification as an invading force of American politicians and corporate executives.
>With the trip, Obama becomes the first sitting president to visit the country since 1928, when Calvin Coolidge arrived on the USS Texas. While Obama flew into Havana aboard Air Force One and not a naval gunboat, the trip is no less a projection of US imperialism’s power over its impoverished island neighbor.
>Symbolic of the future role the US envisions for itself in Cuba, Obama and his family, including wife Michelle Obama, daughters Sasha and Malia, and his mother-in-law, will be staying at the US ambassador’s residence. The residence, a 32,000 square foot neoclassical mansion half the size of the White House, was built in 1941 as a winter residence for the US president, and was completed during the same period that the US government built up the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base on the eve of US participation in the Second World War.
>After arriving on Sunday, Obama is expected to greet Cardinal Jaime Ortega at Havana’s cathedral. Ortega played a key role in the secret negotiations facilitated by Pope Francis that resulted in the 2014 agreement between Obama and Cuban President Raúl Castro to restore diplomatic relations between the two countries.
>On Monday, he is expected to lay a wreath at the José Martí Memorial, after which he will meet Raúl Castro for an official meeting at the Palace of the Revolution. In the afternoon he is to be part of an “entrepreneurship summit” to which hundreds of Cubans have been invited, and will take part in a formal state dinner in the evening. On Tuesday, he is expected to give a speech that will be broadcast on Cuban television, followed by a meeting with Cuban dissidents at the US Embassy.
>Underscoring the extent to which economic motivations are a primary consideration in the US moves toward closer relations, the US delegation includes four cabinet secretaries, including Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, billionaire heiress to the Hyatt hotels fortune, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Secretary of State John Kerry, and the administrator of the Small Business Administration, Maria Contreras-Sweet.
>A bipartisan group of at least 38 members of Congress are also reportedly accompanying Obama. Eight senators will be in Cuba, including Dick Durbin, the second-highest ranking Democrat in the Senate, and Patrick Leahy, the Senate’s longest-serving member. Thirty members of the House of Representatives will be there as well, most notably Nancy Pelosi, the House Minority Leader.
>Representing US business interests are Marriott CEO Arne Sorenson, Xerox CEO Ursula Burns, CEO of PayPal Daniel Schulman, CEO of FUBU Daymond John, and Brian Chesky, the president and founder of Airbnb. Also present will be Julie Hanna, the CEO of Kiva, an organization specializing in crowd-funded “micro-loans” and one of the partners in Cleber, an Alabama-based company that has received authorization to build a tractor manufacturing facility in Cuba.
>Aside from these individuals, the US Chamber of Commerce is leading a large delegation, as is Major League Baseball, which will have around 200 people in Cuba. Among them are Commissioner Rob Manfred and other top officials, as well as the Tampa Bay Rays, who are scheduled to play an exhibition game for Obama and other grandees on Tuesday against the Cuban national baseball team.
>The large influx of US corporate and government officials has reportedly taken up 1,200 hotel rooms and displaced travelers during the days of the visit, with prices for hotel rooms tripling to $600 per night.
>The move toward a normalization of relations and an end to the long-standing Cuban embargo is being carried out under pressure from US business interests, who are not interested in standing by while European rivals, regional powers such as Brazil, and especially China, reap the lion’s share of profits from doing business in Cuba as Cuban leaders open up the Cuban economy to direct foreign exploitation.
>As such, the US visit is very much part of a renewed effort on the part of US imperialism to shore up domination in “its own” hemisphere after what it sees as substantial incursions on the part of China and the growth of influence of Brazil in the region. Notably, the massive Brazilian construction company Odebrecht, which is now under fire for its involvement in the corruption scandal engulfing the Brazilian government, was principally responsible for the expansion of the port of Mariel, which can accommodate Chinese ships passing through the Panama Canal.