The Secretary of State of the United States, Marco Rubioannounced visa restrictions on Wednesday for officials from African countries, Brazil and the Caribbean island of Granada to hire Cuban medical missionsthat Washington describes as forced labor.
Rubio did not detail in his statement which African nations are included in the sanctions or the names of those affected. In addition, he pointed out that the sanctions also affected Cuba officials.
“Today, the State Department took measures to impose visa restrictions on officials of African, Cuban and Granada governments, and their relatives, for their complicity in the Medical Missions Plan of the Cuban regime,” he said in a statement.
As noted, the United States “will take the necessary measures to end this forced labor”, while urging countries to “pay doctors directly for their services, not to the slave of the regime.”
“We call on all nations that defend democracy and human rights that join us in this effort to face the abuses of the Cuban regime and support the Cuban people,” said the Secretary of State.
Likewise, the State Department announced that it is also taking measures to revoke visas and impose visa restrictions on several officials of the Brazilian government and former officials of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), which, again, considers “accomplices of the scheme of the Cuban regime of forced export of labor”.
The Trump administration had already announced sanctions in February and June against Cuban officials and Central American countries related to medical missions, one of Havana’s main sources of income.
For his part, Cuba categorically rejects Washington’s accusations and denounces what he considers “a discredit campaign” against his cooperation program and his doctors, present in several Latin American and Caribbean nations, together with about twenty African countries.
In the first human rights report from the return to Trump’s power, the United States said on Tuesday what he sees as “forced labor sponsored by the Cuban State” among the violations registered during 2024.
Last April, Cuban American congressman Carlos Giménez sent another letter again, this time to Propiorubio, so that the Trump administration imposes more tariffs on countries that do not pay directly to Cuban doctors in missions abroad.
“He entertains to take immediate measures, working with Trump administration officials to impose additional financial sanctions to countries that continue to collaborate with the Cuban dictatorship in these forms of exploiting medical missions,” Giménez wrote to Rubio.
The congressman for Florida describes as “slaves” the Cuban doctors who save lives in third countries through bilateral agreements between the island’s government and more than 50 nations around the world.
EFE / ONCUBA.
