U.S. President Barack Obama said Thursday he would act soon on a recommendation by the State Department that could potentially remove Cuba from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Obama’s statement came at the start of a three-day trip to Central America and the Caribbean, the trip to include a visit to the Summit of the Americas in Panama, where Obama reportedly will meet in some fashion with Cuba’s President Raul Castro.

Obama said Thursday the State Department’s review of Cuba’s terror designation is now complete and that he was waiting on the actual recommendation, which his aides will be tasked with handing to him.

Since 1982, Cuba has been on the U.S. state terror sponsor list, which has subjected the island nation to sanctions. In addition, the U.S. has a trade embargo against Cuba, which Havana estimated last year has cost them over $1 trillion in damages since it was enacted in 1960 and was extended to include restrictions on imports to Cuba in 1962, a byproduct of Cold War tensions between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union, which was an ally to Cuba.

At a town-hall meeting Thursday in Kingston, Jamaica, President Obama spoke optimistically about the prospects of being able to thaw relations with the Cuban government.

“Cuba will be participating in the Summit of the Americas, and it is my strong belief that if we engage, that that offers the greatest prospect of escaping some of the constraints of the past,” Obama said.

Obama also told Caribbean nations that they should keep working and interacting with Cuba, though he did note that there needed to be openness about Cuba’s human rights record.

“What I would say to Caribbean countries is that ‘Absolutely, you should continue to engage with Cuba in the ways you have already been doing and the ways that you have already done in the past,” he said.

“I do think that it is important for all of us to be able to speak honestly where we see concerns about issues of human rights and political freedom. And I’m not saying anything publicly that I haven’t said to Raul Castro.”

Human Rights Watch, an organization that independently monitors, researches and advocates for human rights, says since 2011, Cuba has been less prone to sentence those accused of dissent to long prison terms while relaxing travel restrictions that split of families of those who criticized the Castro regime.

However, the group notes the Castro government “continues to repress individuals and groups who criticize the government or call for basic human rights” through the use of “beatings, public acts of shaming, termination of employment, and threats of long-term imprisonment. “