Since Donald Trump took office last month, he's been a lot less lenient on Cuba than Joe Biden was. On January 21, his administration added the Communist Caribbean nation back to the list of countries deemed "state sponsors of terror" by the U.S. State Department.
On Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the United States will place visa restrictions on "individuals exploiting Cuban labor," including "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 labor export program, particularly Cuba’s overseas medical missions," as well as "immediate family of such persons."
The United States is expanding its Cuba-related visa restriction policy. @StateDept has taken steps to restrict visa issuance to Cuban and complicit third-country government officials and individuals responsible for Cuba’s exploitative labor export program. We will promote…
— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) February 25, 2025
In a statement, Rubio said:
Cuba continues to profit from the forced labor of its workers and the regime’s abusive and coercive labor practices are well documented. Cuba’s labor export programs, 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. The United States is committed to countering forced labor practices around the globe. To do so, we must promote accountability not just for Cuban officials responsible for these policies, but also those complicit in the exploitation and forced labor of Cuban workers.
As you might imagine, Cuba isn't thrilled with the new restrictions and denied the accusations of "forced labor," something that has been compared to modern slavery. Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez posted on X that this is all part of Rubio's "personal agenda" and called it the "seventh unjustified aggressive measure against our population within a month."
Once again, Marco Rubio puts his personal agenda before the #US interests.
— Bruno Rodríguez P (@BrunoRguezP) February 25, 2025
The suspension of visas associated to #Cuba's international medical cooperation is the seventh unjustified aggressive measure against our population within a month.
Rubio singled out Cuba's medical missions, something the country has offered up to the world since the 1960s. They call it the "army of white coats," and they send doctors and healthcare professionals to respond to outbreaks and other dire international medical situations, like Ebola in West Africa and the COVID-19 pandemic. These medical professionals make up about 75% of the exported workforce, according to the Cuban government.
On the surface, it sounds great, and the doctors have helped many people, but as Rubio said, it deprives Cubans of medical care at home and enriches the Cuban regime. The professionals are also treated incredibly poorly.
In 2020, Human Rights Watch (HRW) Americas Director José Miguel Vivanco said, "Cuban doctors deployed to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic provide valuable services to many communities, but at the expense of their most basic freedoms," adding, "Governments interested in receiving support from Cuban doctors should press the Cuban government to overhaul this Orwellian system that dictates with whom doctors can live, fall in love, or talk."
According to the report from HRW, doctors on these missions can be disciplined for befriending people with "hostile or contrary views to the Cuban revolution," and must follow other "broad, vague regulations" relating to everything from expressing opinions to visiting places that might "damage" their prestige."
Those who break the "rules" are often punished by losing their wages or even serving up to eight years of jail time. A 2024 fact sheet from the State Department suggests that "The Cuban Ministry of Interior labels workers who do not return to the island upon completing their assignment as 'deserters,' a category that under Cuban immigration law deems them as 'undesirable.' The government bans workers labeled as 'deserters' and 'undesirables' from returning to Cuba for eight years, preventing them from visiting their family in Cuba. In addition, the government categorizes Cuban nationals who do not return to the country within 24 months as having 'emigrated.' Individuals who emigrate lose all their citizen protections, rights under Cuban law, and any property left behind."
A 2019 report from the United Nations stated that "many doctors feel pressured to participate in the missions and fear retaliation if they do not, and that doctors have 'excessive work hours,' limited access to vacations and to salaries, and face official threats as well as restrictions on the rights to privacy and freedom of expression." Cuba denied the allegations, of course, and blamed the U.S. government for spreading lies.
Meanwhile, the Cuban government reportedly earns billions of dollars each year on the backs of these workers, including forms of payment like Venezuelan oil. In Rubio's statement on Tuesday, he said, "The Department has already taken steps to impose visa restrictions on several individuals, including Venezuelans, under this expanded policy."
Rubio, who is the son of Cuban immigrants, has been in favor of tougher economic and immigration restrictions on the country's communist government for years, and his ideas seem to fall right in line with Trump's. On January 31, he announced the "re-creation of the Cuba Restricted List," which "prohibits certain transactions with companies under the control of, or acting for or on behalf of, the repressive Cuban military, intelligence, or security services or personnel."
"The State Department is re-issuing the Cuba Restricted List to deny resources to the very branches of the Cuban regime that directly oppress and surveil the Cuban people while controlling large swaths of the country’s economy. In addition to restoring the entities that were on the list until the final week of the previous administration, we are adding Orbit, S.A., a remittance-processing company operating for or on behalf of the Cuban military," he said in a statement.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member