[News] Destroying Cuba's international medical missions: Marco Rubio's new goal

[Anti-Imperialist News]

peoplesdispatch.org
<https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/02/27/destroying-cubas-international-medical-missions-marco-rubios-new-goal/>
Destroying Cuba's international medical missions: Marco Rubio's new goal
Pablo Meriguet
February 27, 2025
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Cuban doctors who participated in internationalist medical missions. Photo:
MINSAP Cuba

When Marco Rubio was announced as Trump’s pick for Secretary of State, many
expected that during his tenure he would launch attacks against the Cuban
government in an attempt to undermine it and (if he got his way) overthrow
it. The almost immediate reinstatement of Cuba to the shameful US list of
state sponsors of terrorism (from which Biden had removed the Caribbean
country at the end of his term) was an initial and forceful attack on a
small glimmer of hope for the normalization of relations between the two
countries.

On February 25, Marco Rubio announced that he was stepping up his
anti-communist offensive against the Cuban people by trying to discourage
countries from hiring Cuban doctors. This is not the first time Rubio has
tried to destroy this program. Several years ago, Rubio
<https://elpais.com/us/migracion/2025-02-26/marco-rubio-anuncia-una-politica-de-restriccion-de-visas-a-quienes-explotan-a-trabajadores-cubanos.html>
already introduced a “Bill to Combat the Trafficking of Cuban Doctors”
claiming that the Cuban program is a disguised form of forced labor.

Under the argument
<https://x.com/ryangrim/status/1894484088913887598?s=46&t=j_pVUWwiW0mV4bkiIE7wVA>
that Cuban doctors and other professionals are “exploited labor”, Rubio
announced that anyone involved in exporting professional workers to other
countries would suffer sanctions, such as visa restrictions and other
measures. Rubio’s “move” aims to sanction diplomats, officials, and others
involved, including their family members. This would apply to Cubans and
non-Cubans.
*Read more: Why Cuban doctors deserve the Nobel Peace Prize
<https://peoplesdispatch.org/2020/08/25/why-cuban-doctors-deserve-the-nobel-peace-prize/>*

This decision, which adds to a series of attacks by the Trump
administration to destroy the Cuban Revolution, has been repudiated by the
Cuban government. Bruno Rodríguez, Cuba’s Secretary of State, wrote
<https://x.com/BrunoRguezP/status/1894479102821765195>, “Once again, Marco
Rubio puts his personal agenda before the US interests. The suspension of
visas associated to Cuba’s international medical cooperation is the seventh
unjustified aggressive measure against our population within a month.”

For his part, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel posted on X
<https://x.com/DiazCanelB?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor>
“The US State Department should explain to the Americans and the
international community to what extent the attack against Cuban medical
services on which the health of millions of people in dozens of countries
depends, is a credit to their country.”
*What does the program of Cuban doctors outside Cuba consist of?*

In 1963, Cuba sent its first internationalist medical mission to Algeria
<http://www.cubadebate.cu/especiales/2019/05/23/23-de-mayo-de-1963-primera-mision-medica-internacionalista-cubana/>
just after the nation won its independence from France in an arduous war
which cost the life of some 1 million Algerians and saw the mass exodus of
French people, including French professionals which staffed the majority of
health centers. After meeting with the young nation’s head of state Ahmed
Ben Bella, Fidel gave a speech at the inauguration of a new Medical School
in Havana in 1962 and called on the Cuban people to support the mission:

“Most of the doctors in Algeria were French and many have left the country.
There are four million more Algerians than Cubans and colonialism has left
them with many diseases, but they have only a third — and even less — of
the doctors we have…That’s why I told the students that we needed 50
doctors to volunteer to go to Algeria.

I’m sure there will be no shortage of volunteers…Today we can only send 50,
but in 8 or 10 years’ time, who knows how many, and we will be helping our
brothers…because the Revolution has the right to reap the rewards it has
sown.”
*Read more: Medical workers of conviction: Speaking to Cuban doctors who
heal the world
<https://peoplesdispatch.org/2020/09/23/medical-workers-of-conviction-speaking-to-cuban-doctors-who-heal-the-world/>*

Thus, Cuba inaugurated a program which today has seen some 400,000 medical
professionals travel to over 160 countries across the world, supporting
countries that do not have sufficient internal medical professionals to
respond to the demands for general or specialized medical care for their
population. In many cases, the Cuban doctors fill gaps in historically
marginalized and underserved communities, be it in the rural Indigenous
communities of Brazil
<https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2021/08/09/mil-dias-da-expulsao-dos-cubanos-desmonte-do-mais-medicos-fez-do-brasil-alvo-facil-na-pandemia/>,
or poor neighborhoods in cities across the Global South. During the
COVID-19 pandemic, dozens of brigades of Cuban health professionals, called
the Henry Reeve Brigade, were sent to countries across the world, including
Italy. Millions of people across the world have received high quality and
free medical treatment thanks to the Cuban doctors.

The majority of the international medical missions are coordinated as
standing state-to-state partnerships wherein governments pay the Cuban
government for medical services.
*Read more: 60 years of Cuban international medical solidarity
<https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/05/26/60-years-of-cuban-international-medical-solidarity/>*

Thanks to the advanced state of medical professionalization in the
Caribbean, this has been one of the few strategies the country has had to
obtain some income in the face of the unjust economic and commercial
blockade that the United States imposes on Cuba with impunity. Likewise,
Cuba also offers assistance, counseling, and other professional services in
fields other than medicine.

Cuba currently offers this type of service to almost 60 countries around
the world and since the beginning of the Cuban Revolution, it has sent
600,000 professionals to more than 160 countries during its implementation.
As of today, this is one of Cuba’s main sources of income
<https://elpais.com/us/migracion/2025-02-26/marco-rubio-anuncia-una-politica-de-restriccion-de-visas-a-quienes-explotan-a-trabajadores-cubanos.html>
(between 2011 and 2025 it is reported that revenue for this reason exceeded
11 billion dollars), so the decrease in income from professional services
could mean a tremendous blow to the Caribbean island that is currently
struggling against the historic sanctions unilaterally imposed by the US
government.
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