President Donald Trump is taking his pressure campaign against Cuba to Europe, mounting a renewed US push for Italy to halt its use of doctors from the struggling Caribbean nation.
The Trump administration's top diplomat in Havana is in Italy to lobby against the use of Cuban health workers, according to people familiar with the matter who requested anonymity to discuss private matters.
Sending doctors and nurses abroad generates a significant amount of hard currency for the cash-strapped island, at times bringing in more revenue than tourism. Washington, however, sees the program as akin to slave labor.
Mike Hammer, the chargé d'affaires to Cuba since 2024, will visit the southern Italian region of Calabria as soon as next week to meet with local authorities to personally press them on the issue, the people said, cautioning plans could still change.
The State Department didn't directly address questions about Hammer's visit. But a spokesperson said the US condemns "forced labor and human trafficking involved in the Cuban regime's labor export program, especially its foreign medical missions."
Hammer has his work cut out for him. Calabria currently hosts about 400 Cuban doctors and its governor, Roberto Occhiuto, has been hearing US diplomatic entreaties to end the program for years. "With this administration, the requests have become more insistent," Occhiuto said in an interview.
Led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Trump's team has been trying to persuade more nations to end their use of Cuban medical personnel as it moves aggressively to isolate the communist government. After capturing Havana's principal ally in Caracas at the start of the year, the US halted shipments of Venezuelan oil to Cuba and threatened tariffs on any other nation that sends badly needed crude to the island.
Rubio, born to Cuban parents in South Florida, told lawmakers at the end of January the Trump administration "would love to see" the government in Havana fall after more than six decades of one-party rule.
The island, which only produces enough oil domestically to meet about two-fifths of demand, has now gone more than a month without a major fuel delivery. Daily life is grinding to a halt as a result, with imported food stuck in containers at port, airlines halting service because they can't refuel and daily blackouts stretching ever longer.
Earlier this month, Guatemala announced it would quit using Cuban medical brigades, joining a handful of Caribbean countries to jettison the program amid the US push. Italy is the only nation in the European Union to still host Cuban doctors, some of the people said, making it a key focus of Washington's diplomatic efforts.
While Cuba has long deployed its doctors overseas, Italy became a destination for the island's doctors and nurses in 2020, after Covid-19 hit it particularly hard.
Occhiuto described imported medical personnel as essential for his region, which consistently scores toward the bottom of national health rankings. "My priority is the health needs of the citizens of Calabria," the governor said. "I must guarantee health provision, and my emergency rooms stay open only because of the Cuban doctors."
Calabria's government has issued a call for doctors from the EU and outside the bloc, he said, receiving about 150 expressions of interest so far. The national health ministry declined to comment.
A member of the center-right Forza Italia party that is part of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's governing coalition, Occhiuto been governor of Calabria since 2021, securing another mandate last year. He said he has told the US that his plan is to bring a total of 1,000 Cuban doctors into Calabrian hospitals.
"If they can find me another 600 doctors that aren't Cuban but can learn Italian easily I would have no problem agreeing to their request," Occhiuto said. "But those that are here already I can't do without as that would mean shutting down hospitals and emergency rooms."