Obama predicts successor will end Cuba embargo

Washington: Days before becoming the first US president to visit Cuba in 88 years, Barack Obama has predicted that his successor will lift a controversial decades old embargo against the communist-run island.

"My strong prediction is that sometime in the next president's administration, whether they are a Democrat or a Republican, that the embargo in fact will be removed," Obama told CNN Espanol in an interview released yesterday.

"It makes sense for us to be able to sell into Cuba, to do business with Cubans, to show us business practices and how we treat workers and how we approach issues of human rights, that that will help bring about the kinds of changes that are needed."

Obama has reopened diplomatic ties with Havana, but has not been able to convince the Republican-controlled Congress to end the economic embargo in place since the 1960s.