WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday took steps to revoke or restrict visas for some African, Caribbean and Brazilian officials who the U.S. alleges have ties to a Cuban program that sends medical workers oversees.
The State Department revoked the visas of Brazilian Ministry of Health official Mozart Julio Tabosa Sales and former Pan American Health Organization official Alberto Kleiman, Rubio said.
Rubio did not name other officials who were affected but said they were from Africa, Cuba and Grenada. The Cuban government was not available for immediate comment, but has blasted the Trump administration’s efforts to stop the medical missions as a cynical excuse to go after its foreign currency earnings.
The Trump administration in February expanded visa restrictions to target officials believed to be tied to the Cuban program, which has sent medics to countries around the world since the Cuban revolution in 1959. The program provides hard cash to the island nation, which is enduring its latest deep economic crisis.
In a statement on Wednesday, Rubio described the program as one in which “medical professionals are ‘rented’ by other countries at high prices and most of the revenue is kept by the Cuban authorities.” He said it enriches Cuban officials while depriving Cuban people of essential medical care.
The United States “will take action as needed, to bring an end to such forced labor,” Rubio said. “We urge governments to pay the doctors directly for their services, not the regime slave masters.”
In a separate statement announcing restrictions on Brazil and former PAHO officials, Rubio accused the branch of the World Health Organization that covers the Caribbean, Central and South America of acting as an intermediary to implement the program without following Brazilian constitutional requirements, and dodging U.S. sanctions.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington and Ryan Patrick Jones in Toronto; Writing by Jasper Ward; Editing by Caitlin Webber and Cynthia Osterman)
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