Obama plans historic state visit to Cuba

President Barack Obama is expected to visit Cuba next month, becoming the first sitting U.S. president to make a state visit to the island in nearly nine decades.

WASHINGTON — President BarackObamais expected to visit Cuba next month as the two countries continue their efforts to normalize relations after a half-century of Cold War opposition.

The White House is planning to make the announcement, first reported by ABC News on Wednesday, as early as Thursday.

Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro announced in late 2014 that they would begin normalizing ties.

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.

That timetable would put him in Cuba around the week of March 20 and during a week when Havana is awash in events. On the 20th, The Rolling Stones are expected to conclude their Latin American tour with a concert in Cuba and on March 22, Cuba’s National Team will play the Tampa Bay Rays in Havana. It’s unclear whether the president will attend the baseball game.

Sources told the Miami Herald that the president may visit Santiago in addition to Havana.

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. Presi-- dent Harry Truman visited Guantanamo Bay, which is controlled by the United States, so that was not considered a state visit; he didn’t meet with any Cuban government officials, according to his presidential library.

Former President Jimmy Carter visited Cuba in 2011.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican presidential candidate, said President Barack Obama should not travel to Cuba next month.

But asked about reports of the president’s plans on Wednesday night during a town hall in South Carolina, the Republican candidate for president said Obama shouldn’t make the trip “as long as the Castros are in power.”

Cruz’s father was born in Cuba, where he was arrested and jailed before fleeing to the U.S. in 1950.