US targets Cuban medical missions with new sanctions

The United States announced new sanctions on Thursday targeting Cuba's long-running international medical missions program, which sends doctors to dozens of countries and brings Cuba billions of dollars in revenue.

The sanctions targeted government enterprises connected to the program and Cuban Health Minister Jose Angel Portal Miranda. The move is part of recent pressure by US President Donald Trump's government on Cuba. The source said Washington has also imposed a blockade on vital fuel and other supplies, and that Trump threatened to "take over" the island after the January ouster of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro by US forces.

In a statement, the State Department said Cuba's overseas medical missions program amounted to "forced labor" and "human trafficking." It said Cuban officials use coercive laws and economic conditions to push workers to join and remain in labor export programs, while taking between 50 and 95 percent of wages paid by countries receiving the services.

Official figures cited in the source said about 24,000 Cuban doctors and other healthcare professionals were deployed in 56 countries in 2025. Most are sent to remote areas, and Havana presents the program as aid to less developed countries in the Global South. The source said half of the personnel were deployed to Venezuela, which it described as Cuba's top ally for a quarter of a century before Maduro's ouster. The program was projected to generate $7 billion in earnings for Cuba last year.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez defended the medical missions, calling them "a humane and fraternal service." In a post on X, he said the attack on Cuba's medical cooperation was equivalent to an attack on the human right of hundreds of thousands of people in many parts of the world to access health services.

According to official Cuban statistics cited in an Inter-American Commission on Human Rights report, doctors enrolled in the program receive between 2.5 percent and 25 percent of what countries pay Havana for their services. The Trump administration had already pressured the program earlier this year, with Cuba's foreign minister accusing Washington of extorting several Latin American countries that canceled medical assistance deals with Havana.