Countries that engage with the Cuban medical system, including Trinidad and Tobago governmental officials, were threatened by the US government with the option to either forfeit their Cuban medical professionals or their US visas. A recent statement by US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, sparked concerns about the abrupt cancellation of visas, including the Prime Minister’s, who is now in the US with his wife, Sharon Rowley, after Dr. Rowley disclosed that he had been to California for prostate treatment.
The Council for Foreign and Community Relations (COFCOR) of CARICOM convened on February 28 to examine the United States’ decision to cancel the visas of foreign government leaders whose nations hire Cuban physicians and nurses, according to Foreign Affairs Minister Dr. Amery Browne.
- Advertisement -
On February 25, 2025, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated, “Today, we announce the expansion of an existing Cuba-related visa restriction policy that targets forced labor linked to the Cuban labor export program.”
“This expanded policy applies to current or former Cuban government officials, and other individuals, including foreign government officials, who are believed to be responsible for, or involved in, the Cuban labor export program, particularly Cuba’s overseas medical missions.”
In a statement published on his department’s website, Rubio said that the ban also extended to those individuals’ close family members.
“The department has already taken steps to impose visa restrictions on several individuals, including Venezuelans, under this expanded policy.”
Brown stated, “COFCOR held a meeting on this issue this morning (February 28) and has agreed to seek clarification from the (US) State Department on behalf of member states in the region.”
A CARICOM organization called COFCOR oversees member state cooperation and foreign policy coordination. To promote the interests of Caricom member nations, it also collaborates with other parties and international organizations.
Rubio has asserted that the brutal and coercive labor practices of the Cuban dictatorship are widely known and that the country still benefits from the forced labor of its employees.
Rubio stated, “Cuba’s labor export programs, which include the medical missions, enrich the Cuban regime, and in the case of Cuba’s overseas medical missions, deprive ordinary Cubans of the medical care they desperately need in their home country.”
According to him, the US is still dedicated to combating forced labor worldwide.
“To do so, we must promote accountability not just for Cuban officials responsible for these policies, but also those complicit in the exploitation and forced labor of Cuban workers.”
According to a statement posted on the website of the Cuban embassy, the Ministry of Health and partners of the Cuban Medical Brigade commemorated the 20th anniversary of the start of the Cuban medical partnership in T&T on July 19, 2023.
The event was presided over by Cuban ambassador Tania Diego Olite and Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh.
Deyalsingh commended Cuba for its assistance over the past 20 years in supplying physicians and nurses to support T&T’s health sector, according to a statement posted on the embassy’s website.
Reporters were informed by a ministry source that it was “highly unlikely” that T&T officials would be singled out in any way by the new US foreign policy.
The source stated, “It is more likely Cubans and Venezuelans involved in the design and higher levels of the program who could be targeted.”
The Cuban government responded to Rubio by accusing the United States of claiming that labor exploitation was a part of “a campaign to discredit the prestige of Cuban medical missions.”
However, in a statement published on Granma, the official voice of the Communist Party of Cuba Central Committee, on February 26, it claimed that Cuba had deployed almost half a million medical personnel to nations affected by natural catastrophes.
According to the statement, millions of individuals worldwide and in Cuba may be impacted by the US government’s decision.
“The United States will expand the policy of restricting visas related to Cuba, which will now involve the suspension of those associated with the island’s international medical cooperation agreements.”
According to the statement, the US move will limit visas for Cuban authorities and other officials who are considered “alleged accomplices,” as well as those in charge of this foreign medical care program.
This decision, according to the Cuban government, “once again puts his agenda ahead of the interests of his government.”
Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, the Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs, was quoted in the statement as claiming that the US decision was “based on falsehoods and coercion” and that it was meant to impact the health care of millions of people in Cuba and across the world to enrich specific US special interest organizations.
According to the Cuban government, Rubio’s claims that Cuba exports “exploited labor” were a part of a campaign to undermine the reputation of Cuban medical missions that had been started during Donald Trump’s first term as president in 2017–2021.
“In that period, during which the pandemic of COVID-19 was raging, 58 Cuban medical brigades worked in 42 countries in Europe, America, Africa, Asia, and Oceania in the care, treatment and prevention of this scourge.”
“As the Cuban Foreign Ministry has repeatedly stated, these accusations seek to associate the island with practices of ‘modern slavery’ and ‘human trafficking’ for the purpose of exploitation, or alleged interference in the internal affairs of the States in which they are located.”
According to the Cuban government, several undisclosed cooperation programs in Brazil, Ecuador, and Bolivia have had to terminate because of US harassment.
According to the statement, almost 600,000 Cuban healthcare professionals have served all over the world in the last 60 years.
It claimed that Cuban medical professionals have provided assistance to earthquake victims in Algeria (2003), Pakistan (2005), Mexico (1985), Armenia (1988), Iran (1990), Nicaragua (1972), and Peru (1970). Cuban medical assistance during storms, floods, and tsunamis in Honduras (1974–1998), Nicaragua (1988–1998), Guatemala (1998), Venezuela (1999), Guyana (2005), Sri Lanka (2005), and Indonesia (2005) was described in the statement.
Other Caribbean countries, such as Jamaica, have long collaborated on medical and other missions and have profited from the Cuban medical system. This development may hurt the local health system, which has been struggling for years due to the ongoing migration of Jamaican nurses.
Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, Cuba’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, responded to Rubio’s remarks by saying, “Once again, Marco Rubio puts his agenda before the US interests.”
Adding, “The suspension of visas associated with Cuba’s international medical cooperation is the seventh unjustified aggressive measure against our population within a month.”
In May 2023, there were projected to be more than 300 Cuban medical experts in Jamaica; their history began in 1976, when Michael Manley headed the People’s National Party (PNP). The arrangement was terminated by Edward Seaga’s administration as soon as the Jamaica Labor Party (JLP) came to power in the 1980s, and Ulises Estrada, the Cuban ambassador to Jamaica at the time, was removed as a top priority.
Tensions were progressively reduced throughout the JLP and PNP governments, and Cuban medical missions returned to Jamaica.
Cuban medical workers landed in Jamaica as recently as 2021, after arriving in 2020 in 140 cases and in 2016 in 20 cases. Medical personnel typically work for a while before going back to Cuba.
One of the main projects the two nations collaborate on is the Jamaica-Cuba Eye Care Program, which saw 3,476 sight-saving operations carried out between September 2023 and November 2024.
For more than 60 years, Cuban medical aid has benefited other Caribbean countries as well as those in Africa, Latin America, the Pacific, and Europe without any known US intervention.
However, the initiative is exploitative, according to Rubio.
The US secretary of state, “Cuba’s labor export programs, which include the medical missions, enrich the Cuban regime, and in the case of Cuba’s overseas medical missions, deprive ordinary Cubans of the medical care they desperately need in their home country. The United States is committed to countering forced labor practices around the globe. To do so, we must promote accountability not just for Cuban officials responsible for these policies, but also those complicit in the exploitation and forced labor of Cuban workers.”
The St. Vincent Times quotes Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves as saying, even though there hasn’t been any local discussion on the subject, “Some persons in the US Congress have been saying, mainly Republicans, that the doctors and nurses who come down here are part of trafficking in people. I don’t know how it is trafficking in persons. If you call it trafficking in persons, then it loses all meaning because we are paying them, and it’s done very openly and very transparently.”
