U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced this Wednesday visa restrictions for officials from African countries and Grenada, a Caribbean island nation, for hiring Cuban medical missions, which Washington describes as forced labor.
Rubio did not specify in his statement which African nations are included in the sanctions or the names of the affected officials.
“Today, the Department of State is taking steps to impose visa restrictions on several African, Cuban and Grenadian government officials complicit in the Cuban regime’s coerced forced labor export scheme,” he said in a statement.
He stated that the United States will take the necessary measures to end this “forced labor” and urged countries to “pay doctors directly for their services, not the regime slave masters.”
“We call on all nations that defend democracy and human rights to join us in this effort to confront the Cuban regime’s abuses and support the Cuban people,” the Secretary of State said.
In addition, the State Department announced that it is also taking steps to revoke visas and impose visa restrictions on several Brazilian government officials and former officials from the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), whom it again considers “complicit in the Cuban regime’s coerced forced labor export scheme.”
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The Trump administration had already announced sanctions in February and June against Cuban and Central American officials associated with medical missions, one of Havana’s main sources of income.
For its part, Cuba categorically rejects Washington’s accusations and denounces what it considers “a smear campaign” against its cooperation program and its doctors, present in several Latin American and Caribbean nations, along with some twenty African countries.
In its first human rights report since Trump’s return to power, this Tuesday the United States highlighted what it sees as “Cuban state-sponsored forced labor” among the violations recorded during 2024.
Last April, Cuban-American Congressman Carlos Giménez sent another letter, this time to Rubio himself, urging the Trump administration to impose more tariffs on countries that do not directly pay Cuban doctors on missions abroad.
“I strongly urge you to take immediate action, working with Trump administration officials, to impose additional financial sanctions on countries that continue to collaborate with the Cuban dictatorship in these forms of exploitative medical missions,” Giménez wrote to Rubio.
The Florida congressman described 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
