{"id":635895,"date":"2026-03-06T08:12:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T08:12:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/635895\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T08:12:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T08:12:14","slug":"jamaica-ending-agreement-with-cuba-over-medical-missions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/635895\/","title":{"rendered":"Jamaica ending agreement with Cuba over medical missions"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (AP) \u2014 Jamaica\u2019s foreign ministry said Thursday it was ending a decades-long agreement with Cuba involving its medical missions<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The unexpected move comes as the U.S. pushes for ending such missions, with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio<\/a> calling it \u201cforced labor\u201d and a \u201cform of human trafficking.\u201d<\/p>\n

The announcement was made via a statement issued by the office of Kamina Johnson Smith, Jamaica\u2019s foreign minister, according to local media. A year ago, she said Cuba\u2019s medical staff was important to Jamaica\u2019s health care system, noting at the time that there were more than 400 Cuban doctors, nurses, biomedical engineers and technicians in Jamaica.<\/p>\n

The ministry said that both governments \u201cwere unable to agree on the terms and conditions of a new technical cooperation arrangement\u201d after the previous agreement ended in February 2023.<\/p>\n

It added that Jamaica\u2019s government is open to engaging Cuban medical professionals on an individual basis as long as local labor laws are met.<\/p>\n

Last month, the Jamaica Gleaner, a local newspaper, quoted the island\u2019s health minister as saying that while the agreement between both countries had expired, nearly 300 Cuban doctors and specialists remained in Jamaica under existing contracts.<\/p>\n

Jamaica\u2019s announcement comes a day after more than 150 Cuban medical staff departed Honduras<\/a> after its newly elected right-wing government abruptly canceled the agreement.<\/p>\n

Honduran officials have previously dismissed claims that they canceled the program under pressure from the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

Last year, Caribbean leaders met with U.S. officials<\/a> after the U.S. threatened to restrict the visas of those involved with Cuban missions. At the time, the prime ministers of Trinidad and Tobago and of St. Vincent and the Grenadines said they would gladly lose their U.S. visas.<\/p>\n

On Thursday night, Cuba\u2019s deputy foreign minister, Carlos Fern\u00e1ndez de Coss\u00edo criticized ongoing pressure from the U.S. regarding the island\u2019s medical missions.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething very twisted has to motivate the (U.S. government) when for the sake of collective punishment against the people of Cuba, it pressures sovereign governments into depriving their own populations of quality health services,\u201d he wrote on social platform X.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (AP) \u2014 Jamaica\u2019s foreign ministry said Thursday it was ending a decades-long agreement with…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":535580,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[35],"tags":[180756,1613,57214,85353,69,270948,57,210,1141,1142,18155,1612,410,80,67,370,132,68,107],"class_list":["post-635895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-carlos-fernandez","tag-central-america","tag-cuba","tag-cuba-government","tag-donald-trump","tag-forced-labor","tag-general-news","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-jamaica","tag-latin-america","tag-marco-rubio","tag-politics","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-government","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-world-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116181227759161821","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=635895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}