{"id":840993,"date":"2025-04-14T18:12:34","date_gmt":"2025-04-14T23:12:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/14\/mottley-prepared-to-lose-us-visa-local-news-trinidadexpress-com\/"},"modified":"2025-04-14T18:12:34","modified_gmt":"2025-04-14T23:12:34","slug":"mottley-prepared-to-lose-us-visa-local-news-trinidadexpress-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/14\/mottley-prepared-to-lose-us-visa-local-news-trinidadexpress-com\/","title":{"rendered":"Mottley prepared to lose US visa | Local News | trinidadexpress.com"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley says she is prepared to have her United States visa revoked, as she urged Caribbean Community (Caricom) countries to ensure they are able to \u201cexplain…what the Cubans have been able to do for us\u201d as they seek to defend the Cuban health brigade programme.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis matter, with the Cubans and the nurses, should tell us everything that we need to know. Barbados does not currently have Cuban medical staff or Cuban nurses, but I will be the first to go to the line and to tell you that we could not get through the (Covid-19) pandemic without the Cuban nurses and the Cuban doctors,\u201d Mottley said in a statement in Parliament.<\/p>\n

Mottley, the latest Caricom leader to address the issue, said she would be the first to inform the world that Cuban health professionals have been paid \u201cthe same thing that we pay Bajans (Barbadians), and that the notion, as was peddled not just by this government in the US, but the previous government, that we were involved in human trafficking by engaging with the Cuban nurses was fully repudiated and rejected by us.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, I don\u2019t believe that we have to shout across the seas, but I am prepared, like others in this region, that if we cannot reach a sensible agreement on this matter, then if the cost of it is the loss of my visa, to the US, then so be it.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut what matters to us is principles. And I have said over and over that principles only mean something when it is inconvenient to stand by it. Now we don\u2019t have to shout, but we can be resolute.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saving lives, limbs, sight<\/p>\n

Mottley, the Caribbean\u2019s only woman head of government, said she is looking forward \u201cto standing with my Caricom brothers…to be able to ensure that we explain that what the Cubans have been able to do for us, far from approximating itself to human trafficking, has been to save lives and limbs and sight for many a Caribbean person\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Antigua and Barbuda and St Vincent and the Grenadines prime ministers also publicly expressed their support for the Cuban programme, while Grenada\u2019s Foreign Minister Affairs Minister, Joseph Andall, said St George\u2019s not only has a \u201clegal, moral and ethical obligation to stand by the people of Cuba but that it should avoid being opportunistic or transactional as it pertains to the relations between the two countries\u201d.<\/p>\n

On Monday at the official commemoration ceremony marking the \u201cpractical completion\u201d of the construction of the Port of Spain General Hospital Central Block, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley also addressed the issue, vowing to protect Trinidad and Tobago\u2019s sovereignty, even if it means never returning to the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe rely a lot for our healthcare delivery on certain specialists who, over the decades, we have obtained from India, from the Philippines, sometimes from Africa, and mainly from Cuba. Out of the blue, we are now being called human traffickers because we hire technical people whom we pay top dollar\u2014equal to local rates\u2014but we are now being accused of taking part in a programme where people are being exploited,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He continued, \u201cThat\u2019s somebody\u2019s interpretation, and, of course, there are local people here encouraging them to take away our US visas.\u201d<\/p>\n

What Rubio said<\/p>\n

The United States has raised questions about the programme that Caricom countries have insisted has benefited the region significantly.<\/p>\n

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced recently that Washington would be expanding an existing Cuba-related visa restriction policy that targets forced labour linked to the Cuban labour export programme.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis expanded policy applies to current or former Cuban government officials, and other individuals, including foreign government officials, who are believed to be responsible for, or involved in, the Cuban labour export programme, particularly Cuba\u2019s overseas medical missions,\u201d Rubio said.<\/p>\n

Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants who left Cuba in pursuit of the American dream, said in the statement posted on the US Department of State\u2019s website that the new policy also applies to the immediate family of those people supporting the Cuban programme.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe department has already taken steps to impose visa restrictions on several individuals, including Venezuelans, under this expanded policy,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley says she is prepared to have her United States visa revoked, as she urged Caribbean Community (Caricom) countries to ensure they are able to \u201cexplain…what the Cubans have been able to do for us\u201d as they seek to defend the Cuban health brigade programme. \u201cThis matter, with the Cubans and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":840994,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[88632,24091],"tags":[88629,16753],"class_list":{"0":"post-840993","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mottley","8":"category-prepared","9":"tag-mottley","10":"tag-prepared"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=840993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/840994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=840993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=840993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=840993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}