Obama announces normalizing relations between the US and Cuba

President Obama has announced that talks are under way to normalize relations between the USA and Cuba. The Washington Post lists a summary of changes to the relationship

Reestablishing diplomatic relations
Adjusting regulations to more effectively empower Cuban people
Facilitating an expansion of travel to Cuba
Authorizing expanded sales and exports of certain goods and services from the United States to Cuba
Authorizing American citizens to import additional goods from Cuba
Initiating new efforts to increase Cubans’ access to communications and their ability to communicate freely

This is a bold move by Barack Obama that if successful could help define his legacy. There is a long way to go with this though. Predictably Republicans are against the idea.

UPDATE: The White House has released a full list of the changes here.

UPDATE 2: The official White House statement in part says.

Decades of U.S. isolation of Cuba have failed to accomplish our objective of empowering Cubans to build an open and democratic country. At times, longstanding U.S. policy towards Cuba has isolated the United States from regional and international partners, constrained our ability to influence outcomes throughout the Western Hemisphere, and impaired the use of the full range of tools available to the United States to promote positive change in Cuba. Though this policy has been rooted in the best of intentions, it has had little effect – today, as in 1961, Cuba is governed by the Castros and the Communist party.

We cannot keep doing the same thing and expect a different result. It does not serve America’s interests, or the Cuban people, to try to push Cuba toward collapse. We know from hard-learned experience that it is better to encourage and support reform than to impose policies that will render a country a failed state. We should not allow U.S. sanctions to add to the burden of Cuban citizens we seek to help.

Statement from the Speaker of the House of Representatives John Boehner giving the Republican view.

Relations with the Castro regime should not be revisited, let alone normalized, until the Cuban people enjoy freedom – and not one second sooner,” Boehner said. “There is no ‘new course’ here, only another in a long line of mindless concessions to a dictatorship that brutalizes its people and schemes with our enemies. If anything, this emboldens all state sponsors of terrorism, as they now have an even better idea of what the president meant when he once told Russian leaders he would have ‘more flexibility’ after his reelection.