The Deputy Director of the General Directorate of the U.S. in Cuba, spokesperson Johana Tablada, acknowledged that the Cuban regime retains a portion of the salary of doctors who go on international "missions" and stated that the professionals "are aware of this from the beginning" because they sign it in their contracts.
In a conference titled “Cuba Facing Extermination: A Hope That Must Not Die. Update on the Impact of the Blockade and Its Relations with the U.S.”, Tablada stated that the doctors are aware of the destination country, the duration of the contract, and the payment in foreign currency, and that in Cuba, their full salary is "maintained" so that their families are not affected.
"It is true that there is a part of that contract... that goes to Public Health in Cuba," he stated.
Tablada defended that the portion of income that doctors do not receive “does not go to a private clinic, it goes to the Cuban people, for the Public Health System of Cuba.”
At the same time, he denied that those agreements constitute human trafficking or forced labor. He stated that the collaborators “can move freely” in the destination countries.
The official framed her arguments within the South-South cooperation and compared the deductions to practices of foreign institutions, mentioning the Mayo Clinic as an example that in different systems, part of the contractual income does not go directly to the professional.
He also argued that the Cuban collaboration agreements do not meet the criteria to be classified as trafficking.
In the same conference, Tablada held the "economic war" by the U.S. responsible for the crisis on the Island and denied the existence of Chinese espionage bases in Cuba, emphasizing that the only foreign military base is the Guantanamo Naval Station.
The words of Tablada represent an explicit acknowledgment of the partial confiscation of the salaries of medical cooperators by the State —a central element of international criticism of these programs— and reiterate that this condition has been established since the signing of the contract.
This year, the United States Department of State has once again placed Cuba at Level 3 in its Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP), the most severe category, which includes countries that do not meet the minimum standards for eliminating trafficking and are not making significant efforts to do so.
The 2025 document warns that the Cuban regime maintains a “policy or pattern” of human trafficking sponsored by the State, particularly through the export of medical services, considered the country's main source of income, generating 4.9 billion dollars in 2022, the last year for which data is available.
The report indicates that the so-called Cuban medical missions, presented as solidarity programs, conceal labor exploitation practices that border on modern slavery. Workers sent abroad, mostly health professionals, are recruited through deception and under threats of retaliation.
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