President Obama expected to visit Cuba in March

The White House is planning to make the announcement as early as Thursday, according to a senior administration official.

Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro announced in late 2014 that they would begin normalizing ties after a half-century of Cold War opposition.

Obama's stop in Cuba will part of a broader trip to Latin America that the president will take next month, said the officials, who requested anonymity because the trip hasn't been officially announced. The White House planned to unveil Obama's travel plans Thursday.

Though Obama had long been expected to visit Cuba in his final year, word of his travel plans drew immediate resistance from opponents of warmer ties with Cuba -- including Republican presidential candidates.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, whose father fled to the U.S. from Cuba in the 1950s, said Obama shouldn't visit while the Castro family remains in power. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, another child of Cuban immigrants, lambasted the president for visiting what he called an "anti-American communist dictatorship."

"Today, a year and two months after the opening of Cuba, the Cuban government remains as oppressive as ever," Rubio said on CNN. Told of Obama's intention to visit, he added, "Probably not going to invite me."

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.

 But Obama, facing steadfast opposition to normalized relations from Republicans and some Democrats, has been unable to deliver on Cuba's biggest request: the lifting of the U.S. economic embargo on Cuba. Opponents argue that repealing those sanctions would reward a government still engaging in human rights abuses and stifling of democratic aspirations.

Obama and supporters of the detente argue the decades-old embargo has failed to bring about desired change on the island 90 miles south of Florida. Still, while Obama has long expressed an interest in visiting Cuba, White House officials had said the visit wouldn't occur unless and until the conditions were right.

"If I go on a visit, then part of the deal is that I get to talk to everybody" — including political dissidents, Obama told Yahoo News in December. "I've made very clear in my conversations directly with President Castro that we would continue to reach out to those who want to broaden the scope for, you know, free expression inside of Cuba."

Officials didn't immediately specify what had changed in the last few weeks to clear the way for the trip, first reported by ABC News. 

Obama’s visit will be the first since President Calvin Coolidge delivered a speech at the Pan-American Conference in 1928. He urged nations of the Western Hemisphere to embrace peace and value the principles of freedom and democracy, according to the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation.

Coolidge emphasized the equality that existed between the independent republics of the Americas. “The smallest and the weakest speak here with the same authority as the largest and the most powerful,” he remarked, according to “Calvin Coolidge and Cuba” by Rushad L. Thomas.

President 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.

Al Jazeera with wire services