U.S. Pushes Western Hemisphere Nations to Drop Cuban Medical Missions

A State Department memo dated February 23 and addressed to Secretary of State Marco Rubio lays out a strategy to convince governments across the Western Hemisphere to sever ties with Cuba's overseas medical missions program, part of a broader Trump administration effort to cut into Havana's finances and regional reach, according to reporting by Politico's Nahal Toosi and Eric Bazail-Eimil.

The scale of the program makes it a significant target. Roughly 19,000 Cuban healthcare professionals currently work across 16 countries in the Western Hemisphere, and in some of those nations they account for more than one-fifth of the entire medical workforce. Cuba's overseas missions have long served as a major revenue source for the island's government, and U.S. officials believe dismantling the program could significantly weaken both Havana's finances and its influence across the region.

State Department senior official Jeremy Lewin told Politico the missions represent a major source of funding for the regime, characterizing them as "one of the most pernicious examples of modern-day slavery and forced labor."

The memo outlines what Washington is prepared to offer governments that walk away from Cuban medical teams: telemedicine programs, training resources, and assistance recruiting healthcare workers from other countries. The proposal effectively asks nations that depend on Cuban doctors to accept a U.S.-backed alternative framework in exchange for ending arrangements that, in some cases, have run for decades.

Honduras and Jamaica have already made that break, both recently ending longstanding medical partnerships with Cuba. Other governments across the hemisphere are reconsidering their own arrangements as pressure from Washington mounts.

The February 23 memo was uncovered by Politico, which framed the strategy as part of a coordinated campaign to weaken Havana's communist government. With Honduras and Jamaica already out and at least a dozen more countries still hosting Cuban medical personnel, the coming months will test how far Washington's leverage actually reaches.