Lula defends the Más Médicos program and condemns the blockade against Cuba

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva condemned the United States blockade against Cuba, which has now lasted more than six decades, and defended the Más Médicos program, implemented in Brazil in 2013 in cooperation with the island.

On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the revocation of visas for Brazilian government officials, former officials of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), and their families, who collaborated with the health cooperation program.

The visas of Mozart Julio Tabosa Sales, Secretary of Specialized Health Care at the Ministry of Health, and Alberto Kleiman, former advisor on International Relations at the Ministry and current general coordinator of the 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30) in 2025, were revoked.

"It is important for you to know that our relationship with Cuba is based on respect for a people who have been victims of a blockade for 70 years. Today, they find themselves in need, under an unjustifiable blockade. The United States fought a war and lost," Lula denounced at an event in the municipality of Goiana, in the northeastern state of Pernambuco.

Since the beginning of his second term, the administration of US President Donald Trump has been trying to restrict the countries that receive Cuban professionals.  Cuba has had this cooperation program since the 1960s.  Throughout its history, 605,000 doctors from the island have worked in 165 nations.

Cuban doctors participated in More Doctors in Brazil, in cooperation with PAHO, from 2013 to 2018.  For Lula, the creation of the program was necessary to address the existing deficiencies in the country's health system.

During Jair Bolsonaro's administration, the program changed its name and was reformulated and expanded during the former labor leader's third term, which began in January 2023.

Following the departure of the Caribbean professionals in 2018, Lula thanked the Cubans who participated in the program and thanked Cuba for helping other peoples of the world with its medicine.

"How great it would be if we, like Cuba, had doctors to export to other countries!" the former union leader stated in a letter sent to the Cuban people following the end of his participation in the initiative.

He asserted that the bonds of brotherhood between the peoples of Brazil and Cuba are much stronger than irrational hatred, and that Cuban professionals "have earned the affection and gratitude of millions of Brazilians."

That's why I want to say to the people of Cuba: be very proud of your doctors and your medical schools.  You have won millions of admirers, millions of grateful people in Brazil, the founder of the Workers' Party emphasized on the occasion.