![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dominicanewsonline.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/cuba-antiguapng.png\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
This week, the government of Antigua under the administration of Gaston Browne, has terminated its medical relationship with Cuba which it has maintained for many years, according to media reports out of Antigua.<\/p>\n
The policy shift was an abrupt one considering that the Browne administration spent the year vowing to protect its relationship with Cuba amidst increasing pressure from the US government.<\/p>\n
Browne had gone as far as saying that the Cuban medical officers were the core of the Antiguan medical service and that their removal would devastate their health services. He had also refuted the claims levied by the US that the program was a cover for human trafficking.<\/p>\n
Despite his earlier, seemingly adamant stance, his administration suddenly terminated the relationship in December with no public explanation provided. The news itself was broken by the opposition party (United Progressive Party) UPP in a statement to the media.<\/p>\n
In that release the UPP stated:<\/p>\n
“It is unfortunate that the mutually beneficial partnership our two countries forged has been ended so abruptly by the sitting Administration; but we assure the Government and People of Cuba that the United Progressive Party is neither ungrateful nor forgetful.”<\/em><\/p>\n Throughout 2025, the Trump administration under the lead of Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been mounting pressure on several Caribbean nations in an attempt to secure their political interests in the region.<\/p>\n Rubio has in particular been focused on ending the Cuban Medical programs or in other cases forcing the end of payments from Cuba to doctors in favour of direct payments from local governments.<\/p>\n With both Dominica and Antigua and Barbuda having been slapped just\u00a0 this week with US Visa restrictions, the question remains what else the US might use to leverage their policy in the region and what concessions are our governments willing to make given this mounting pressure?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This week, the government of Antigua under the administration of Gaston Browne, has terminated its medical relationship with Cuba which it has maintained for many years, according to media reports out of Antigua. The policy shift was an abrupt one…","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":354194,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","footnotes":""},"categories":[18,77,235,9,12,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-354193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-homepage","category-homepage-carousel","category-news","category-politics","category-regional"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n