The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Cuba (MINREX) rejected this Thursday the decision by the Dominican Republic to expel several officials from the Cuban Embassy in Santo Domingo and accused the government of Luis Abinader of acting under pressure from the United States.
In an official statement shared on social media, the Cuban Foreign Ministry described the measure as an "act of subordination" to Washington's policy and denied that the affected diplomats had engaged in conduct that would justify their departure from the country.
"There is no other explanation for this action than the submission of the government of the Dominican Republic to the pressures from the U.S. government, which, in its effort to isolate Cuba, has sought to damage our diplomatic relations with countries in the region," stated the MINREX.
The response from Havana came hours after San Domingo officially confirmed the decision and invoked Article 9 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which allows a state to declare any member of a diplomatic mission persona non grata without being obligated to publicly explain its reasons.
There is, however, a discrepancy regarding the number of officials affected. The MINREX claims that there are ten, while the Dominican Foreign Ministry and local media have reported nine. Along with their family members, the measure would involve about 21 people.
The officials must leave Dominican territory before Sunday, August 16.
The Dominican Ministry of Foreign Affairs refrained from disclosing the reasons that led to such a significant decision and assured that it will handle the matter exclusively through diplomatic channels.
"The Dominican government adheres to the current regulations and will continue to address this matter with the appropriate discretion and through the established diplomatic channels, in the interest of preserving relations between both countries," it was stated.
Havana directly blames Washington
In the face of the Dominican silence regarding the reasons for the expulsion, the Cuban regime provided its own explanation and directly blamed the U.S. administration.
The MINREX stated that there is no "justification whatsoever" for the decision and asserted that its diplomatic representatives "have strictly fulfilled their duties."
The Cuban Foreign Ministry also linked the episode to other recent decisions from Santo Domingo that, in its opinion, demonstrate a growing alignment with Washington's policy towards Havana.
Among them, she mentioned the exclusion of Cuba from the X Summit of the Americas, initially planned in Punta Cana and later suspended, as well as the change in the Dominican Republic's stance at the United Nations regarding the U.S. embargo.
In July 2026, the Dominican Republic abstained in the vote of the UN General Assembly on the resolution against American sanctions on Cuba. A year earlier, it had supported the text alongside 165 other countries.
Relations between Santo Domingo and Havana have shown increasingly evident signs of deterioration under the government of Luis Abinader.
In May, the Dominican president openly questioned the Cuban political system during an interview with Infobae.
“They have their way of elections, but it's not a democratic State”, he declared at that time.
Another diplomatic setback for Havana in the region
The crisis with the Dominican Republic occurs in a year marked by several setbacks for Cuban diplomacy in Latin America.
In March, Ecuador ordered the expulsion of all Cuban diplomatic personnel in Quito, giving them only 48 hours to leave the country. Havana responded by closing its embassy in the Ecuadorian capital.
That same month, Costa Rica closed its diplomatic representation in Havana and requested the regime to withdraw its staff from San José, amid criticism regarding the human rights situation in Cuba.
In July, the then-elected president of Colombia, Abelardo de la Espriella, announced the severance of diplomatic relations with Cuba and Nicaragua as part of a plan to reorganize Colombia's presence abroad, which includes the closure of 14 embassies and 15 consulates. De la Espriella assumed the presidency on August 7.
Havana's response to these episodes has followed a similar pattern: to reject the decisions, label them as arbitrary, and attribute them to the influence of the United States.
Precisely, the Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez, while sharing the MINREX statement, indicated: "There is no reason that justifies this decision by the Dominican authorities."
Despite the seriousness of the diplomatic crisis, the Cuban MINREX sought to separate the relationship between governments from the connections between peoples: "With this new act, the Dominican authorities significantly harm the ties between the two governments, but they will not be able to wound the deep and historical bonds that exist between the Cuban and Dominican peoples, which have been solidified from both countries' struggles for independence to the present day."
Cuba and the Dominican Republic established diplomatic relations in 1902, which were interrupted during the dictatorship of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo and were definitively reestablished in 1998.
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