A meet­ing be­tween US of­fi­cials and Cari­com For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ters is be­ing arranged in March to dis­cuss the Trump Ad­min­is­tra­tion’s pol­i­cy to re­strict the visas of gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials whose coun­tries em­ploy Cuban med­ical prac­ti­tion­ers.

This visa re­stric­tion pol­i­cy will al­so ap­ply to the im­me­di­ate fam­i­ly mem­bers of the gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials.

On Feb­ru­ary 25, US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio an­nounced, “The ex­pan­sion of an ex­ist­ing Cu­ba-re­lat­ed visa re­stric­tion pol­i­cy that tar­gets forced labour linked to the Cuban labour ex­port pro­gramme.”

Ru­bio said this ap­plies to Cuban gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials and, “oth­er in­di­vid­u­als, in­clud­ing for­eign gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, who are be­lieved to be re­spon­si­ble for, or in­volved in, the Cuban labour ex­port pro­gramme, par­tic­u­lar­ly Cu­ba’s over­seas med­ical mis­sions.”

The US Sec­re­tary of State said that the Cuban gov­ern­ment prof­its from this “abu­sive and co­er­cive labour prac­tice, which en­rich­es its regime while de­priv­ing Cuban cit­i­zens of the med­ical care they des­per­ate­ly need in their home coun­try.”

This coun­try em­ploys sev­er­al Cuban med­ical pro­fes­sion­als, such as doc­tors, nurs­es and phys­io­ther­a­pists.

Guardian Me­dia at­tempt­ed to get an ex­act num­ber from the Min­istry of Health, how­ev­er, all at­tempts to con­tact Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh were un­suc­cess­ful. Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer, Dr Roshan Paras­ram, ad­vised Guardian Me­dia to sub­mit the ques­tion through the Health Min­istry’s com­mu­ni­ca­tions de­part­ment, how­ev­er, there was no re­sponse yes­ter­day.

But For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne said, “The COF­COR (Coun­cil for For­eign and Com­mu­ni­ty Re­la­tions) had a meet­ing on this is­sue this morn­ing (Fri­day) and has agreed to seek clar­i­fi­ca­tion from the State De­part­ment on be­half of mem­ber states in the re­gion.”

Min­is­ter Browne added, “A meet­ing is be­ing arranged for the sec­ond week of March for COF­COR Min­is­ters with US en­voy Mauri­cio Claver-Carone in Wash­ing­ton DC.”

Claver-Carone is the US State De­part­ment’s Spe­cial En­voy for Latin Amer­i­ca.

At­tempts were made to get a com­ment from Cuban Am­bas­sador to T&T, Gus­ta­vo Veliz. How­ev­er, Veliz asked for more time be­fore com­ment­ing.

Three weeks ago, Am­bas­sador Veliz 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.

Speak­ing specif­i­cal­ly on the bi­lat­er­al re­la­tion­ship as it per­tains to the med­ical field, Veliz said, “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.”