Feature image via Canva Pro.
On February 25, as concerns over immigration issues lingered — and about a month prior to his arrival in Jamaica this week — US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced visa restrictions for government officials in Cuba, as well as for any foreign officials that the US considers “complicit” in Cuba’s foreign medical programmes.
Himself of Cuban descent, Rubio justified the move with reference to “forced labor,” adding that the restrictions would include “current and former officials” and the “immediate family of such persons.”
For their part, Caribbean leaders are arming themselves with arguments in support of the 40-year-old Cuban Medical Cooperation Programme. It is an issue on which the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) appears united, with some regional leaders offering to forgo their own US visas in defence of the programme.
Secretary Rubio is set to meet with Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness and other officials in Kingston, where they will be joined by, among others, current CARICOM Chair and Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Mottley, and the newly installed Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago Stuart Young.
Ahead of the Rubio visit, a regional delegation had visited Washington, DC to meet with US Special Envoy for Latin America and the Caribbean Mauricio Claver-Carone, to discuss a number of pressing issues, including security in Haiti. Claver-Carone is a strong supporter of sanctions against Cuba, but the island's relationship with the rest of the Caribbean is amicable and cooperative.
An example of the Jamaica-Cuba partnership is the Jamaica/Cuba Eye Care programme: since it resumed in 2023, Cuban medical professionals have screened and conducted pre- and post-operative care for several thousand Jamaicans, resulting in nearly 4,000 surgeries. With the support of the Jamaican government’s National Health Fund, it has expanded to include supplementary eye care to prevent blindness, an initiative that has benefitted approximately 27,000 Jamaican adults who are functionally blind and a further 81,000 with low vision.
Minister of Health and Wellness Christopher Tufton lauded the success of the programme, for which he and his Cuban counterpart signed two technical cooperation agreements in October 2022. The second agreement allowed for the continuation of medical brigades of doctors and nurses from Cuba; at the time of signing, Tufton described the partnership as “a tradition that we in Jamaica appreciate and have benefitted from, and which I believe the world has benefitted from.”
As far as the Caribbean is concerned, medical assistance from Cuba — which got underway in the mid-1970s when Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Barbados and others established diplomatic relations with the country — has been critical in helping to save lives. An editorial in The Jamaica Gleaner pointed out that Cuba has a higher-than-average proportion of trained medical personnel than either the United States or Jamaica, the latter being woefully short of nurses in particular:
Marco Rubio’s plan to sanction countries for using Cuban doctors and nurses in their health systems is nothing short of callous, cruel and vindictive.
If Mr Rubio possesses a scintilla of decency, he should immediately rescind the policy, whose hurt will be felt not only by Cuba, but by poor people in Africa, Asia and the Americas, including several Caribbean countries, Jamaica among them. It will cost lives, and, possibly, the unintended consequence of adding to the factors that drive illegal migrants from their home countries to the United States. Which is something the Trump administration is vehemently against.
In a March 20 press release, Jamaica’s Foreign Affairs Minister Kamina Johnson Smith observed that she had confidence in the Jamaica/Cuba programme and, contrary to the claims of the current US government, did not consider it to fall under the umbrella of human trafficking. A diaspora-based Caribbean news outlet reported her comments:
#JAMAICA: The Foreign Ministry says it had undertaken a review of the Cuban medical cooperation programme long before any international scrutiny surfaced and it could not be found to involve human trafficking, said Minister Senator Kamina Johnson Smith. pic.twitter.com/5gSBAc1wbh
— CaribbeanNewsNetwork (@caribbeannewsuk) March 20, 2025
A report in the diaspora publication Caribbean Camera noted the responses of other regional leaders, including the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, who “spoke out against the accusations, vehemently denying any involvement in human trafficking”:
He emphasized that Cuban healthcare workers are vital to the region’s medical infrastructure, with many countries dependent on them for core services. Browne warned that the proposed visa restrictions could dismantle the Caribbean’s healthcare system and put the lives of citizens at risk. He also criticized what he viewed as extraterritorial actions by the United States, urging the US to reconsider its stance.
Its report noted the reactions of several other Caribbean leaders, including Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit of Dominica, who was quoted by a local media house:
Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit:
“here in the Caribbean, every single country: If you were to remove Cuban trained doctors and Cuban doctors from the health system of every Caricom country, with no exception, the health systems would collapse.” 🇩🇲🇨🇺 pic.twitter.com/zI7XPIwaX9
— Kawsachun News (@KawsachunNews) May 10, 2022
A diaspora newspaper, meanwhile, quoted the remarks of Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines Ralph Gonsalves:
#STVINCENT: Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves says his government is compiling information requested by US authorities regarding Cuban medical workers in the country while maintaining that these professionals are not victims of human trafficking, as claimed by the US government. pic.twitter.com/DhqNOs2NDl
— CaribbeanNewsNetwork (@caribbeannewsuk) March 21, 2025
Caribbean netizens have also pushed back at the proposed restrictions:
Cuba is in the Caribbean. Many islands in the Caribbean have good doctors and medical schools. The point is Cuba has some of THE BEST in the world. Even better than many top western nations.
Why would you not want access to the BEST IN THE WORLD?
— General Belair🇭🇹 (@Chalana305) March 14, 2025
The decision to ban Cuban doctors from assisting other countries is unjust, criminal & unconscionable.
Cuba’s medical brigades have been on the frontlines of global health crises where it is needed most for decades. Blocking them is an attack on humanitarianism. Shame on you.
— Philip Rose (@PhilipRose) March 13, 2025
One social media user from Haiti shared her perspective:
After Haiti's 2010 earthquake, who immediately came to the rescue? Cuban doctors. The Cuban people in Cuba have always come to our rescue in Haiti without expecting anything in return. I as a Haitian, continue to stand with Cuba and their incredible Cuban doctors. 🇭🇹🫱🏾🫲🏿🇨🇺 https://t.co/9ynnnNissr
— Bettinna ⚔️ 🇭🇹 (@bettinna) March 18, 2025
On Facebook, Jamaican-Canadian academic Honor Ford Smith perhaps spoke for many when she wrote:
Everyone in the region knows what Cuban medical care has meant for us. And we know how weak our own public health care system is. So we know what losing this bilateral engagement with our closest neighbour will mean. We all have personal experience of how helpful the Cuban health workers have been. I know I do. When my friend was very ill with diabetes it was the Cuban nurses and doctors that made sure he received the care he could not afford privately and lengthened his life. We also know a little of what the Americans have delivered to us over the decades. One youth on social media said that the greatest aid provided by the US over the last decades is guns of all shapes and sizes. They are the largest supplier of guns to the region…
There is still time for us to stand up for OURSELVES and the health of our own people in rural and poor communities. Together we will be stronger. [This] is the time to tell your representative to stand up for the brigades. It is also the time to write to Caricom directly calling on them to
• Reject the idea that the governments of the region are involved in human trafficking through the Cuban medical mission.
• Defend the right of the peoples of the Caribbean to access public health care delivered through the Cuban medical team.
• defend the right of member states to determine for themselves which forms of regional cooperation can best meet the needs of the people of the region.
As the Caribbean prepares for the Secretary of State's visit, there is an air of apprehension — but also one of defiance and a perhaps unusual display of unity.
