FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 5, 2025
Contact: press@fhrcuba.org
Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba Urges Action on Forced Labor in USMCA
Final panel of USTR hearings focuses on trafficking and coercive labor practices
MIAMI (Friday, December 5, 2025)— As the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) concludes three days of public hearings on the operation of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), the Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba (FHRC) is calling for immediate action to close a loophole that allows governments to continue facilitating forced labor programs since the agreement does not apply to such abuses under the cover of “public service.”
“USTR should take immediate action to ensure that forced labor and human trafficking are prohibited — without qualification and without room for discretion,” said FHRC Executive Chairman Tony Costa. a critical flaw in the Agreement:
Under the current USMCA, Article 23 only prohibits forced labor if it can be proven to “affect trade or investment.” This narrow construction overlooks government to government arrangements – much like Mexico’s contract with Cuba’s regime to pay billions for medical professionals. By allowing Havana to confiscate workers’ wages, seize their passports, and control their movements, Mexico is effectively enabling modern-day slavery.
According to Mexico’s federal immigration service (INM) and the health services department (IMSS Bienestar), more than 2,300 Cuban doctors were imported into Mexico between July 2022 – 2024 under conditions consistent with trafficking indicators described in the U.S. Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons (TIP). The report first categorized Cuba’s overseas medical missions as state-sponsored human trafficking starting in 2010.
The increasing scale of these deployments underscores the urgency of action. FHRC emphasized that a trade agreement binding the United States cannot contain a loophole that permits the continuation of programs the U.S. government itself identifies as trafficking.
“Under the USMCA, no partner nation should have the right to profit from coercive labor—whether in goods or in services. These contracts must be prohibited,” Costa said. “The U.S. cannot tolerate slave-like practices in any trade agreement, with any nation, at any time. Particularly when such policies are in direct contradiction to the federal government’s own trafficking findings.”
During the final panel on the last day of hearings, subject experts argued that there is indeed a connection between these coercive practices and the USMCA’s broad limitations. Statement excerpts are below.
José R. Cárdenas, Latin America policy expert:
“Cuba’s overseas labor operations are a particularly pernicious program where the regime earns desperately needed hard currency off the backs of Cuban medical personnel sent abroad. In addition to confiscating up to 90 percent of the wages due the Cuban workers, Havana strips them of their passports, subjects them to 24/7 surveillance, and forces them to endure indignities that violate not only their labor rights, but their very human rights as well.
“I am here to argue that free-trade agreements cannot be siloed from other foreign policy concerns of the United States. We owe it to the American people that these agreements do everything necessary to uphold our values, principles, and norms across the full scope of our bilateral relationships.”
Maria Werlau, Executive Director of Cuba Archive
“Cuba’s state-run labor export system is the country’s largest official source of revenue, reporting $4.4 billion in 2023 from ‘health and human attention services’ alone. This is a unique brand of modern slavery involving restriction of movement, withheld credentials, intimidation and surveillance, unsafe and substandard living conditions, coercion, and forced political duties.
“The USMCA technically prohibits forced labor, but enforcement applies only when forced labor can be shown to ‘affect trade or investment.’ This allows governments to evade responsibility simply by claiming their coercive labor programs are not trade-related. The agreement must clearly ban forced labor in both goods and services — and violations must be presumed to affect trade.”
FHRC also submitted survivor testimony from Ramona Matos to document the human cost of these programs. One Cuban physician who escaped an overseas assignment stated: “They took my passport, my earnings and my freedom. We were told it was service to our country — but it was slavery.”