Op-Ed by Chargé d’Affaires Karin Sullivan Of The U.S. Embassy on the Cuba Medical Workers

Op-Ed by Chargé d’Affaires Karin Sullivan, U.S. Embassy to Barbados, the Eastern Caribbean, and the OECS on the Cuba Medical Workers

For decades, the Cuban regime has falsely marketed its so-called international brigades, including medical missions, as acts of global goodwill and as a symbol of altruistic solidarity.

In reality, the Cuban regime’s programs export their labor under coercive conditions that solely benefit the corrupt and illegitimate Cuban regime all while exploiting the workers, including medical professionals who make up 75 percent of the Cuban regime’s exported labor. 

Appalled by the regime’s decades’ old abuse of its people, the Trump Administration has taken steps to apply visa restrictions to individuals involved in Cuba’s labor export program, including third-country officials who facilitate the placement of Cuban medical personnel abroad, and is talking with the more than 50 countries that use Cuban labor about addressing the program’s deep flaws.

The rationale behind the U.S. approach is straightforward. Cuba’s medical missions function as an exploitative forced labor scheme generating more than five billion dollars of foreign currency per year for the regime – its biggest source of income.

Cuban medical workers are often compelled to participate under restrictive conditions, with the state withholding medical credentials, passports, and the lion share of workers’ wages, severely limiting their freedom of movement and association, and imposing draconian punishments, including an eight-year exile, if they violate these conditions or leave assignments early.

Revenue from these programs flows to the Cuban regime, while the Cuban people on the island face chronic shortages of medical care and widespread blackouts.

Regional cooperation with the Cuban regime on healthcare is often framed as a response to staffing shortages, not political alignment.

But good intentions to address gaps in a country’s healthcare system cannot excuse taking advantage of forced labor and supporting a failed system that restricts workers’ freedoms, channels earnings to the corrupt Cuban regime, and leaves partners in our hemisphere entangled in arrangements that raise serious ethical and legal questions.

As Secretary Rubio said a year ago in Jamaica, “It’s not that they’re Cuban doctors, it’s that the regime does not pay these doctors, takes away their passports, and, basically, it is in many ways forced labor.” This is not about denying healthcare to vulnerable populations here in the Eastern Caribbean.

It is about not being complacent or legitimizing a system that relies on coercion and enriches the Cuban regime at the expense of the island’s medical personnel. At its core, it is a human and labor rights issue.

The aim is accountability, not isolation – accountability for governments and individuals who enable exploitation.  It is the United States’ firm posture that the Cuban regime needs to reform these practices, which deprive Cuba’s doctors and nurses of fair compensation and deprive the Cuban people of essential healthcare at home.

As Caribbean nations build their healthcare systems, the Trump Administration emphasizes that promoting ethical labor practices and protecting all foreign workers, including medical professionals, can go hand in hand with regional cooperation.

Defending human dignity and opposing forced labor schemes are not obstacles to global health cooperation, they are prerequisites for it. By working together to strengthen local health systems and support fair, transparent arrangements, countries can continue meeting urgent healthcare needs while fostering partnerships that are sustainable, equitable, and mutually beneficial.

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