Obama's Slew of Foreign Trips for 2016: Cuba on List

The White House will decide in the next couple months about a potential trip by President Barack Obama to Cuba and wants both countries to take steps to ensure the thaw in relations is irreversible, U.S. deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said on Saturday.

Rhodes, who was a key architect of the shift in U.S. strategy to the island nation, said Washington wanted to see Cuba improve its record on human rights and spur greater economic activity such as allowing private companies to operate in the communist country.

Cuba also needed to give its people more access to information and the Internet, he said.

"The key test for us is whether the president's going to Cuba would help advance those priorities," Rhodes told reporters in Hawaii, where Obama is vacationing.

"That's something I think we'll make a decision about ... in the next couple months."

A trip by a U.S. president would be historic and the White House is eager to use that leverage to press Cuba to make reforms. Obama has made clear he is eager to visit the country before he leaves office next year.

Obama is also planning a slew of other foreign trips in his final year in power, The New York Times reported.

"He already has two trips to Asia, two more to Europe and another to Latin America on his calendar, and a second to Latin America will most likely be added, according to administration officials," the Times reported. "And before the tires on Air Force One cool from each of those trips, the president will jog up the stairs of the plane for numerous jaunts around the United States to campaign and raise money for Democratic candidates, as well as to host foreign leaders outside Washington."

Obama’s first major trip is a trip on Feb. 15-16 to Sunnylands in Rancho Mirage, Calif., to host the leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean. It will be the first time those leaders will gather in the United States.

Then he has trips to Japan in May for a Group of 7 summit meeting and another to China in September for the Group of 20. There likely will be more stops in Asia during both trips, including a trip to Vietnam.