MIAMI – President Barack Obama is set to become the first sitting U.S. president to visit Cuba in nearly 90 years during a historic trip next month.
Obama announced the trip Thursday morning on Twitter. The White House later issued a news release saying that the president "will work to build on the progress we have made toward normalization of relations with Cuba."
Obama's planned trip comes just 14 months after the countries reopened diplomatic ties. The countries have since opened their embassies and recently restored commercial air traffic.
The upcoming trip is already drawing criticism among Republican presidential candidates.
"I'll tell you, the problem with this Cuban government is, it's not just a dictatorship -- it is an anti-American Communist dictatorship," Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who grew up the son of Cuban immigrants in South Florida, told CNN.
We still have differences with the Cuban government that I will raise directly. America will always stand for human rights around the world.
— President Obama (@POTUS44) February 18, 2016
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, whose father emigrated from Cuba, also slammed the decision.
"I think it's a real mistake," Cruz told CNN. "I think the president ought to instead be pushing for a free Cuba."
Rep. Illeana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., said she was "disappointed, but not surprised" by the announcement.
"We still have differences with the Cuban government that I will raise directly," Obama said on Twitter. "America will always stand for human rights around the world."
Closer to home in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood, protesters stood outside the famed Verseilles restaurant holding signs calling Obama a "coward."
"We haven't benefitted anything in the supposed give-and-take that's happened between the U.S. and the Cuban government since the beginning of the opening of relationships last year," Verseilles patron Frank Cantero told Local 10 News.
But not everyone criticized the president's upcoming visit.
"It's a good move, because President Obama represents the (most) powerful country in the world," supporter Luis Medina said.
Ros-Lehtinen said Obama claimed that he wouldn't visit Cuba until some changes were made.
"So I ask myself, what happened to make the conditions right? Absolutely nothing," she said.
The trip is planned for March 21-22. Obama will be the first sitting president to visit the island since Calvin Coolidge in 1928.