WASHINGTON, United States (AFP)—New United States (US) sanctions announced on Thursday targeted Cuba’s decades-old international medical missions programme, which sends doctors to dozens of countries and earns the island billions in revenue.

The sanctions targeted government enterprises associated with the program as well as Cuban Health Minister Jose Angel Portal Miranda.

The move is the latest by US President Donald Trump’s government to tighten a stranglehold on the communist-run island in recent months.

Washington has also imposed a blockade on vital fuel and other supplies, with Trump threatening to “take over” the island after he ousted Venezuela’s leader in January.

In a statement on Thursday, the State Department said Cuba’s overseas medical missions program amounted to “forced labor” and “human trafficking.”

“Cuban officials exploit inherently coercive laws and economic conditions to manipulate or compel workers to join and remain in labor export programs, while confiscating between 50 and 95 percent of the wages paid by receiving countries,” the statement said.

According to official figures, around 24,000 Cuban doctors and other healthcare professionals were deployed in 56 countries in 2025.

Most are sent to remote areas, with Havana touting the program as offering aid to less developed countries in the Global South.

Half were deployed to Venezuela, Cuba’s top ally for a quarter of a century before the violent January ouster of socialist president Nicolas Maduro by US forces.

The program was projected to generate $7 billion in earnings for the cash-strapped island last year.

According to official Cuban statistics cited in an Inter-American Commission on Human Rights report, doctors enrolled in Cuba’s program receive between 2.5 percent and 25 percent of what countries pay Havana for their services.

The Trump administration had already exerted pressure on the program earlier this year, with Cuba’s foreign minister accusing Washington of “extorting” several Latin American countries that canceled their medical assistance deals with Havana.