PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC) — Caribbean Community (Caricom) foreign ministers met on Friday to discuss the decision by the United States (US) to revoke the visas of foreign government officials whose countries employ Cuban doctors and nurses.

“On the morning of Friday, February 28, as Minister of Foreign and Caricom Affairs I represented Trinidad and Tobago at a special meeting of Caricom’s COFCOR, which is our Council for Foreign and Community Relations,” Dr Amery Browne said.

“This meeting was convened specifically to discuss a Caricom response to the announcement from the State Department regarding states working with the Cuban medical brigade,” Browne added.

Earlier this week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington was announcing “the expansion of an existing Cuba-related visa restriction policy that targets forced labour linked to the Cuban labour export programme”.

“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 labour export programme, particularly Cuba’s overseas medical missions.”

Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants who left Cuba in pursuit of the American dream, said in the statement posted on the US Department of State’s website that the new policy also applies to the immediate family of those people supporting the Cuban programme.

“The department has already taken steps to impose visa restrictions on several individuals, including Venezuelans, under this expanded policy,” he added.

Browne said that Caricom foreign ministers, who met virtually, agreed “to seek additional information and clarifications from the United States State Department as most of our member states have engagements with the Cuban medical brigade”.

“Additionally, Caricom foreign ministers are arranging a meeting with the US special envoy for our region to take place in Washington in the second week of March,” Browne said.

The communique issued Friday following last week’s Caricom summit in Barbados, noted that the regional leaders were “gravely concerned with the continuing deterioration of the humanitarian situation in Cuba resulting from the embargo imposed on the people and Government of Cuba by the Government of the United States of America”.

“The conference renews its call for the lifting of the unilateral financial, economic and trade embargo and for Cuba to be immediately removed from the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism,” the communique added.

Rubio, in his statement, said that Cuba continues to profit from the forced labour of its workers and that that regime’s abusive and coercive labour practices have been well documented.

“Cuba’s labour export programmes, 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,” Rubio said, adding that Washington remains committed to countering forced labour practices around the globe.

After the 1959 Cuban Revolution, Havana established a programme to send its medical personnel overseas, particularly to Latin America, Africa and Oceania, and to bring medical students and patients to Cuba for training and treatment respectively. The project has been expanded to include several Caribbean countries.

In 2020, the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) expressed its deep appreciation to Cuba for the medical support provided to the sub-region to assist with efforts to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19).

The grouping said that the provision of specialised health care through the Henry Reeve International Medical Brigades had not only augmented the scarce medical resources of OECS member states but has provided assurance to the general populations of the region’s capacity to fight and manage COVID-19.

At least 473 Cuban medical personnel worked alongside their Caribbean counterparts in eight countries, namely Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, and St Vincent and the Grenadines, to assist in managing the spread of COVID-19.

Speaking at a news conference on Thursday, Guyana’s Vice President, Bharrat Jagdeo, told reporters that Cuban healthcare workers have been going to countries for a “very, very, long time and has transcended several US administrations”.

He praised that system’s support for the health sector, adding that “the Cuban medical presence in the region has had some positive impact on healthcare delivery across the region”.

Jagdeo said the matter was not confined to Guyana but extended across the Caribbean and that if Caricom leaders succeed in securing a meeting with US President Donald Trump or Rubio, a number of issues such as trade, deportees and the Cuban healthcare support would be on the region’s list of issues to be discussed.

“We felt that (the US) president should see the region not through the eyes of a third party but directly get views from the leaders of the region,” Jagdeo told reporters.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said that Rubio’s decision was “based on lies” and will “affect health services for millions of people in Cuba and around the world”.

“Once again, Marco Rubio is placing his personal interests above those of the United States,” he wrote on social media platform X.