Raphael John-Lall

Cu­ba’s Am­bas­sador to T&T, Gus­ta­vo Vél­iz has as­sured that the coun­try’s re­la­tion­ship with T&T will con­tin­ue in the eco­nom­ic, health and ed­u­ca­tion fields de­spite moves by the new Don­ald Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion to tight­en the decades old sanc­tions against Cu­ba.

Trump was sworn in Jan­u­ary and on his first day, he re­in­stat­ed Cu­ba’s des­ig­na­tion as a state spon­sor of ter­ror­ism, re­vers­ing an ex­ec­u­tive or­der is­sued by for­mer Pres­i­dent Joe Biden just a week be­fore.

Cu­ba has been un­der a US eco­nom­ic em­bar­go for 63 years and de­spite tak­ing a toll on Cu­ba’s econ­o­my in re­cent years, Vél­iz in an in­ter­view with the Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian promised that joint co-op­er­a­tion in the field of busi­ness and oth­er gov­ern­ment-to-gov­ern­ment de­vel­op­men­tal agree­ments will con­tin­ue.

“De­spite the very com­plex eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion, Cu­ba aims to main­tain and ex­pand its re­la­tions with the Caribbean. In the case of T&T, 11 schol­ar­ships were of­fered to study med­i­cine in Cu­ba start­ing in Sep­tem­ber 2025. To date, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 100 stu­dents from T&T have grad­u­at­ed in Cu­ba.”

He al­so spoke about gov­ern­ment agree­ments that were signed that will keep Cuban med­ical pro­fes­sion­als in T&T in the fore­see­able fu­ture.

“In T&T, a Cuban Health Brigade has been pro­vid­ing ser­vices for over two decades; Cuban col­lab­o­ra­tors re­mained in T&T dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and in No­vem­ber 2024, the Cuban Am­bas­sador and the Ho­n­ourable Min­is­ter of Health, Ter­rence Deyals­ingh, signed a con­tract to ex­tend Cuban med­ical col­lab­o­ra­tion in T&T for an­oth­er five years,” said­Vél­iz.

He en­cour­aged T&T’s busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty to seek op­por­tu­ni­ties in Cu­ba.

“De­spite the eco­nom­ic, com­mer­cial, and fi­nan­cial block­ade im­posed by the US on Cu­ba for more than six decades, op­por­tu­ni­ties re­main for en­tre­pre­neurs from T&T to trade and in­vest in Cu­ba. The Trade Fa­cil­i­ta­tion Of­fice, un­der Ex­port T&T, helps fa­cil­i­tate the in­ter­ests of T&T’s busi­ness­peo­ple in in­vest­ment and trade with Cu­ba.

In Ju­ly 2000, the Eco­nom­ic Co­op­er­a­tion Agree­ment be­tween the Re­pub­lic of Cu­ba and the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty was signed, com­ing in­to ef­fect in Jan­u­ary 2001. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, in 2017, the Sec­ond Pro­to­col to the Bi­lat­er­al Trade and Co­op­er­a­tion Agree­ment was signed, a doc­u­ment that ex­pands the tar­iff pref­er­ences grant­ed by Cu­ba and fa­cil­i­tates mar­ket ac­cess.

He point­ed out that sev­er­al in­ter­na­tion­al events are held in Cu­ba, in which en­tre­pre­neurs from T&T have par­tic­i­pat­ed.

The 20th In­ter­na­tion­al Ex­poCaribe Fair will take place from June 23 to 27, 2025, at the Here­dia Cul­tur­al Com­plex in San­ti­a­go de Cu­ba and he said An­gos­tu­ra Ltd. was giv­en an award at the 19th edi­tion of Ex­poCaribe in 2024.

From Feb­ru­ary 24 to 28, 2025, the 25th edi­tion of the In­ter­na­tion­al Ha­bano Fes­ti­val ded­i­cat­ed to pre­mi­um cig­ars will be held in Ha­vana. As every year, a high turnout of Ha­bano en­thu­si­asts from var­i­ous coun­tries, in­clud­ing the US, is ex­pect­ed.

Trade ties

Vél­iz al­so re­mind­ed that T&T’s lead­ers in the po­lit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic are­nas al­so con­tin­ue to meet Cuban of­fi­cials to ad­vance ties.

Speak­er of T&T’s House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Bridgid An­nisette-George met Cu­ba’s Pres­i­dent Miguel Di­az-Canel at Ha­vana’s Rev­o­lu­tion Palace last Sep­tem­ber where the Pres­i­dent rat­i­fied Cu­ba’s com­mit­ments pre­sent­ed at the most re­cent Cu­ba-Cari­com Sum­mit, in which the is­land pro­posed a se­ries of projects for joint work.

Vél­iz al­so met For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Amery Browne last De­cem­ber mark­ing the 52nd an­niver­sary of diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions be­tween T&T and Cu­ba as well as Cari­com-Cu­ba day, both com­mem­o­rat­ed on De­cem­ber8.

Browne and the Cuban Am­bas­sador en­gaged in dis­cus­sion on av­enues to broad­en the ro­bust bi­lat­er­al re­la­tion­ship be­tween T&T and Cu­ba, whilst ap­pre­ci­at­ing the al­ready sig­nif­i­cant strides achieved in the fields of health and ed­u­ca­tion. Both par­ties ad­dressed the re­cent dif­fi­cul­ties faced by Cu­ba as a re­sult of the nat­ur­al dis­as­ters that have hit the coun­try, which ex­ac­er­bat­ed in­fra­struc­tur­al con­cerns on that is­land na­tion.

Vél­iz al­so met Trade Min­is­ter Paula Gopee-Scoon last June where both promised to deep­en trade and busi­ness ties.

Ac­cord­ing to a Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try news re­lease dat­ed June 5, 2024 T&T, gen­er­al­ly a net ex­porter to Cu­ba, ex­port­ed a di­verse port­fo­lio of prod­ucts to the coun­try in 2022.

Top ex­ports in­clud­ed both en­er­gy and non-en­er­gy prod­ucts such as an­hy­drous am­mo­nia, toi­let tis­sue, glass bot­tles and aer­at­ed wa­ters. In 2022, T&T im­port­ed ten prod­ucts from Cu­ba, in­clud­ing non-en­er­gy prod­ucts such as chlo­rine, iron con­tain­ers, cig­ars, rum, elec­tric wa­ter heaters and ve­hi­cle parts.

Speak­ing specif­i­cal­ly about T&T and Cuban re­la­tions, Vél­iz said that suc­ces­sive T&T Gov­ern­ments have sup­port­ed Cu­ba in its fight against the US trade em­bar­go.

“The Gov­ern­ment of T&T has main­tained for years a po­si­tion of re­jec­tion of the afore­men­tioned list and has re­it­er­at­ed its call for the lift­ing of the block­ade against Cu­ba. Cu­ba is grate­ful for the sup­port of Caribbean coun­tries and T&T in this case, for their ac­com­pa­ni­ment at the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly and oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al fo­rums.”

He al­so not­ed that Cu­ba is not a state spon­sor of ter­ror­ism.