Open Letter to CARICOM on US visa restriction policy on government officials whose countries engage Cuban medical professionals
On February 25, 2025, the United States Department of State through Secretary of State Marco Rubio, announced the expansion of an existing Cuba-related visa restriction policy applying to current or former Cuban government officials, including foreign government officials and their immediate family, who are believed to be responsible for, or involved in, the Cuban labour export program, particularly Cuba’s overseas medical missions. These missions have been described as ‘labor export programs’ that enrich the Cuban government and countries involved are described as complicit in the exploitation, forced labour and human trafficking of Cuban workers.
We endorse the responses to the US Department of State announcement by current Caribbean leaders including Keith Rowley, Prime Minister of Trinidad & Tobago; Ralph Gonsalves, Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines; and Mia Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados; who have deemed the US visa restriction policy as a threat to the sovereignty of Caribbean states. The Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines stated that ending such programmes would jeopardize the lives of 60 nationals who are currently part of a Cuban-run hemodialysis program to treat kidney failure. Several Caribbean leaders have repudiated accusations that Caribbean countries are complicit in human trafficking. Dickon Mitchell, Prime Minister of Grenada, has described the arrangement with the Government of Cuba as a “legitimate partnership”; Gaston Browne, Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, has defended the Cuban doctors and nurses as “core’ to the country’s delivery of health services; Guyana’s President, Dr. Irfaan Ali, has confirmed that the Government ensures that Cuban workers’ contracts and terms of employment align with international labour laws and standards.
Jamaican Foreign Minister Kamina Johnson Smith is on record as indicating that the presence of Cuban health professionals is important to the Jamaican healthcare system, pointing to 400 doctors, nurses and medical technicians currently working in the country. In a social media post, Bahamian Foreign Minister Fred Mitchell pointed out that his government “follows all international best practices in the recruitment of labor.”
This is not the first time that Caribbean leaders have had to defend the work of Cuban Medical Brigades in the face of US criticism. In June 2020 the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) issued a statement expressing “its deep appreciation to the Republic of Cuba for the medical support provided to six (6) member countries of the OECS to assist with efforts to combat the spread of the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in the OECS and wider Caribbean region.” The OECS was responding to a recent Bill introduced by a US Republican Senator which classified this assistance from Cuba as “human trafficking” and sought to “extend punitive measures against countries accepting this assistance.”
Historical and current ties between CARICOM countries and Cuba have been long and cordial. In 1972 diplomatic relations were established between Cuba and Barbados, Guyana, Trinidad & Tobago and Jamaica. In 2002 commercial and economic agreements were signed between Cuba and CARICOM countries and by 2017 preferential access to a range of products between the countries of the Caribbean and Cuba were agreed. Over this period areas of cooperation between CARICOM countries of the Caribbean have remained strong in trade, investments, health and agriculture. CARICOM has also been in the forefront in consistently expressing solidarity with Cuba and calling for an end to the US embargo on Cuba and the lifting of crippling US sanctions.
We categorically reject these accusations and misrepresentations of Cuban labour exploitation, forced labour and human trafficking in the Caribbean in relation to Cuban medical personnel and medical services. We stand in solidarity with our sister nation Cuba and its selfless and heroic medical professionals who have saved lives, enhanced medical services and delivered expert medical care to countless Caribbean peoples.
We call on Caricom to collectively:
• Firmly reject and repudiate the idea that the governments of the region are involved in human trafficking through the Cuban medical mission.
• Defend the inalienable right of the peoples of the Caribbean to access public health care delivered through the excellent work of the Cuban medical team.
• Firmly defend the self-evident right of member states to determine for themselves which forms of regional cooperation can best meet the needs of the people of the region.
