Former Dominican Ambassador to the United Nations, Crispin Gregoire, has sharply criticized recent U.S. demands that Caribbean nations halt the practice of sending students to Cuba for medical training, calling the directive “deeply unfair” and harmful to the region’s healthcare systems.
Speaking ahead of the upcoming CARICOM summit in St. Kitts, Gregoire argued that Washington’s pressure campaign undermines decades of cooperation between Cuba and its Caribbean neighbors.
“If the Americans say we cannot train our students in Cuba, are they going to provide scholarships to U.S. universities instead? The answer is no,” he said. “The U.S. doesn’t even have enough places to train its own doctors, far less ours.”
The demand to end Cuban medical programs is part of a broader set of measures imposed by Washington recently. These measures include the closure of USAID programs throughout the Caribbean, which has curtailed development assistance in the region. They also involve restrictions on tourist and immigrant visas, particularly impacting Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, and St. Vincent, thereby limiting mobility and opportunities for citizens of those nations. In addition, Washington has required CARICOM states to accept U.S. deportees, placing added social and economic strain on local governments. Finally, the United States has requested that Caribbean countries host military radar installations, a move that raises concerns about sovereignty and regional security.
Gregoire noted that Dominica, already facing multiple sanctions, has little room to maneuver.
“They will have no choice. Zero choice,” he warned, suggesting that governments risk further penalties if they resist U.S. directives.
For decades, Cuba has provided scholarships to Caribbean students, producing thousands of doctors and professionals. Cuban medical brigades have also been deployed across the region, filling critical gaps in healthcare delivery. Countries such as Jamaica, which hosts the largest contingent of Cuban medical personnel, rely heavily on this support.
St. Lucia’s Prime Minister Philip Pierre confirmed that Washington has asked his government to stop sending students to Cuba, a move he said poses a “major issue” for his country’s healthcare sector.
“Many of our doctors got trained in Cuba, and now the great U.S. has said we cannot do that any longer,” Pierre stated.
Summit chair and St. Kitts Prime Minister Terrance Drew, himself a Cuban-trained physician, defended the contributions of Cuban professionals.
“The federation values its relations with both Cuba and the U.S. We are a friend to all and an enemy of none,” Drew said, rejecting U.S. claims that Cuba’s medical program exploits its workers.
Gregoire placed the dispute within the wider context of global power competition. With Venezuela’s oil shipments to Cuba cut off and Mexico pressured to halt its own supplies, Cuba faces a deepening energy crisis. Russia and Iran have pledged assistance, but U.S. naval presence in the Caribbean could block deliveries.
“The whole global order is changing,” Gregoire observed. “America is paying attention to its backyard because China and Russia are active here. They want to counter that. And Cuba is under fire.”
Gregoire lamented the loss of Ross University in Dominica, which once contributed significantly to the island’s economy, and warned that dismantling Cuban medical cooperation would further impoverish the Dominican people.
“It took us 40 years to build that university sector, and now it’s gone. The end of the medical brigade will mean poverty and hardship,” he said.
While some governments, including the Bahamas, Guyana, and Antigua, have already yielded to U.S. pressure, others remain defiant. Dominica has long prided itself on its close association with Cuba, sending students there since 1979. Gregoire emphasized that this solidarity has been vital for human resource development across the Caribbean.
As CARICOM leaders prepare to meet on February 24, the issue is expected to dominate discussions. With Washington intensifying its demands and regional governments weighing the risks of compliance, the summit may prove to be one of the most consequential in recent years.
It is sad that a rich, huge and developed country like the United states of America spent most of its time and resources on a small island name Cuba. The rational is that Cuba is communist and that means it is evil. Other Caribbean countries should have no relation with that country. The question we should ask? Why is an embargo still in place against Cuban? Fidel Castro and his brother are dead. The United States do business with China, Russia and Korea. They are Communist. Does that make the United States communist? Big man, small man. Big man has the power to push the small man around. Big man has all the resources to help small man, but would not. However, if someone dare to help the small man that person is in trouble. The Caribbean is in the backward of the United States. It is considered a small man. The big man has helped all others but refuse to help the poor man in his backward. Cuba has trained many Caribbean nationals to be doctors. Should that be stopped?
I agree with most of your points. But this “Big man small man” thing is just another prejudicial way of thinking.
Skerrit is a “Big Man” but he is a small man to Trump. Everyone is a “big man” to somebody and a “small man” to somebody else.
We can’t change Trump we should resist him for the right reasons anywhere we can and treat with him for our benefit wherever we can but we can really only change ourselves and our own leaders.
There are monstrous “big men” and monstrous “small men” too maybe we shouldn’t be looking at big man or small man but who is true and who is false (we can also call it good and evil).
Not just the superficial either because we are often easily manipulated fooled or placated or incensed (let’s be real many of us are easily offended and want to be told comforting or ego gratifying lies).
No to find real lasting solutions to our problems we need to find the truth and substance in all things – and that takes more than applying simple labels it takes a genuine and open-minded effort.
Up next, he is going to demand the expulsion of all formal Chinese embassies from the region.
What the U.S. is asking for clear is clear accountability of how do we pay the cuban doctors and cuban nurses? Do we pay them directly or do we pay the Cuban government. What is the agreement that Dominica has with the Cuban government? It appears that we are paying the Cuban government directly and they pay their doctors and nurses a percentage. I am happy that we get free scholarships to study in Cuba, but over all these years, we have send quite a number of doctors to study in Cuba, when they return, the gov’t don’t want to give them a decent salary, therefore most of them migrate, that is why we still need the Cuban doctors. And in all those years, we still don’t have a pathologist, we still don’t have doctors specializing in specific conditions that we need.
Sometimes we need to take some time and really ponder as to what really is going on? Who is really benefiting from the free scholarships, the cuban doctors and nurses? The individuals or the government?
Applying critical thinking skills to complex geopolitical issues is a hard ask for most dominicans. Even those who regularly comment on here who speak like they have degrees in political science are ignorant of key facts in the topics that they so confidently pontificate on. I replied to a comment some time ago and posted a link to a U.S. government document that laid out clear facts that debunked a claim made by one of the regulars here. The person’s response was that I was “trying to play smart” (or something to that effect) by providing documented facts relevant to the issue. You’re never going to get any kind of reasoned analysis from people like that.
I concur.
I would add, most of the rhetoric here seems motivated by either blatant hatred and prejudice or something seething beneath the surface while mixing with very reasonable, justifiable frustration with the current situation.
I’m convinced most Dominicans operate on a standard of prejudicial thinking (the only real standard we practice). New information is shunned in favor of narcissistic supply driven motivations: https://www.simplypsychology.org/narcissistic-supply.html
It might be called “tradition” or even maintaining a standard but it is something lesser than that, negative and at the risk of sounding hyperbolic – evil.
Ultimately it is an excuse to justify abuse or wrong doing against scapegoated individuals “prey” for their narcissistic supply. Essentially putting you others down makes them feel better about themselves.
With that said we can’t let that stop true critical thinkers there are far more of us than you would think, silently observing.
This is your main issue. You think simplistically about everything. “Reading between the lines” was a concept we learned in school back then. You simply present articles as gospel instead of doing that. Global issues are not that easy, my brother. Every nation acts in its own self-interest, hence there are always hidden agendas. I reside in America, so like you I love America too, but what they are doing to the Caribbean is wrong. It’s way more that the doctor’s brigade it includes us not accepting Cuban scholarship for our kids.
You will talk and talk . But those kno nuns will still run there mouth and say one plus one is 3 even after you give them compelling evidence
What you said is correct. A simple answer was asked . Are we paying the doctors or are we paying the cuban government. That’s the thing that was ask that most bo—- he—-ds can’t seem to understand. They will keep watching biased American anti trump proper gander and lower there iq like the rest
Both Trump Supporters and anti Trump people have low iq individuals among them and the opposite of that statement is true.
According to Trump “There are very fine people on both sides” He did clarify that he was not including white supremacists in that statement.
I told a Trump supporter on here (i think that was you) that I don’t think lesser of them just for supporting Trump. However, I will add, they have to be able to call out his bad behaviors consistently, that’s non-negotiable.
THAT is the mark of whether you can be reasoned with or you support good or evil and not the party you support or don’t support.
Plain and simple. Just tell Trump to P**S OFF. He should worry more about how Americans now rising up against TRUMPISM. He and his nazi cabal are now the most hated people in the US and the world because of the way he has used his ICE gestapo to terrorise immigrants and American citizens. He is also trying to digress away from the main issue – His involvement in a world wide child sexual trafficking ring. exposed by the Epstein files. Trump should tell the world what happened to the over two million documents missing from the Epstein files and why the victims are not redacted but the names and identities of the rich and powerful involved, are? He is running scared of the midterms because he knows that his fate depends on the results, especially if the Dems flip the house and take charge of committees to hold him accountable. The Cubans are our friends and that will never change. The Caribbean nations are all sovereign and protected by international law to make their own decisions.
Eagle-eyed, its not that simple, I’m willing to risk myself to stand for what I believe is right but other people who stand with me or behind me will also suffer for my actions.
Our leaders need to be responsible enough to recognize that, we can and will pay for their arrogant bluster and mishandling of the situation. As the ambassador put it we have “..no choice. Zero choice” in many matters concerning the US.
However, we can do our best not to make it worse for ourselves and those who rely on us when and if we choose to stand up to this bully.
For the record, my vote is firmly on resisting bullys wherever they stand…or crawl.
Could you imagine what would have happened when Hitler was just rolling his tanks through Europe and Africa and conquering all before him because he had the most powerful and sophisticated army in the world. We would all be speaking German by now. But the world got together as one and stopped him in his tracts. We need the world to adopt this same mentality with regard to Donald Trump. The more people cower to him the more he take and demand more. We should all be inspired by the people of Minneapolis who stood up to his ICE gestapo (even at the expense of costing the lives of a couple members of their community), and succeeded in rolling back the masked, jackbooted goons unleashing his terror on their state. Wringing hands and Doing nothing is not the answer.
You won’t like me saying this but we need to see things with clarity to know how to respond. He is not a Nazi.
He is a wannabe dictator as all narcissists are but he is his own thing, it might be much worse in someways.
He is not loyal to anything including his own race he’s just that tyrannically selfish.
We are not the righteous marching against Hitler reborn, it is much more chaotic than that, many of our personalities are just as selfish and would do just as much evil maybe in a different direction…maybe.
If we truly care about preventing harm or evil outcomes we are not fighting against nation states or individuals as much as bad ideologies and behaviors that enable justification of dogmatic evil (evil you cant question). This includes the narrative that they are Nazis we clearly are the good guys and that anything we do is justified.
That approach has been tried and it made him stronger and amplified our own hate and prejudice. We are worse off for it.
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck. Then it is a duck. Mass incarceration. Mass deportation, kidnapping people from their homes, workplaces, schools, hospital. Stopping people in the streets and asking for ID, pulling people from cars based on their ethnic profile. Etc. All from the playbook of Hitler’s nazis in the 1930’s and it all for the pleasure of the commander in chief. So no matter how you want to dress it. It is till nazi behaviour. Project 2025 is all based on Hitler’s Mein kampf doctrine. And it is endorsed and implemented by Trump. So sorry to hurt your feelings if you are a Trump fan but the man is a nazi.
I’m not a fan of Trump and my feelings aren’t hurt but it does sound a bit like yours are. To put it mildly, he is objectively having a very bad effect on the world, im not here to defend him.
I want to believe you are better than that, but the issue is you are following a dogma from a side that says anyone who introduces nuance is immediately lying, evil or stupid. Its a tactic to dismiss anyone who irritates them enough by disagreeing with them…usually when facts and reason are introduced.
Nuance is extremely important, there is a difference between strychnine and cyanide, yes they are both poison but the treatment is very different – one has a known antidote the other does not.
There are different kinds of poison and there are different kinds of evil, not everything is nazism.
There is a false choice being presented especially in the American political context of the two major political choices both are different kinds of poison while simultaneously presenting themselves as the antidote to each other.
Both sides are lying to you and obscuring the truth, its what they do in an attempt to increase their control and power.
You are right that doing nothing is not the answer. We do need to unite but not by the usual “hate the other side enough to act” or by the reactive selfishness and fear of “because now we are being affected” that has fueled humans from as long as we can remember our history.
Identifying these behaviors that brought us to this low place, the selfishness, the narcissism, the lack of critical thinking in important places, the shunning of intelligence, the intolerance to standards and principles because it rubs our egos the wrong way that has to go.
IF we can unite then we can survive and do some good change and make no mistake it is ultimately about survival of ourselves and as well as good values.
A seemingly insurmountable task, but we can and we have to overcome, the alternative is more of the same. Until even that is unsustainable…
the US want to take the food out of the caribbean region mouth and not willing to even give them Biscuits as PM would say. No country should interfere with another country will to better themselves. What’s more health care is essential. The US stinks .
I agree with Former UN Ambassador Crispin Gregoire that dismantling the Cuban Medical Brigade program will have adverse impacts on the health and medical services in Dominica and the wider region.
Dismantling the Cuban Scholarship program will also adversely affect the continuing effort to capacitate the continued development of Dominica’s human resources including that of the wider region.
I believe it is time for Dominica and the wider region to look at alternatives. The need to strengthen bilateral relations with Canada, Europe, BRICS and increase ACP relations is something that should be placed on my table before it’s too late.
The region’s response to pressure on Cuban medical training will signal whether the Caribbean still believes it can navigate this rupture through improvisation—or whether it is finally prepared to act with collective intent.