MEXICO will continue to have Cuban doctors work in the country, President Claudia Sheinbaum has said, as other nations across the Americas have ditched their agreements with Cuba’s government under US pressure.

Ms Sheinbaum praised Cuban doctors who often work in underserved rural areas under a medical aid programme, saying: “It’s a bilateral agreement that helps Mexico a lot.”

US President Donald Trump has suffocated Cuba by effectively cutting the island off from oil imports and has sought to isolate the Caribbean nation in an effort to push for regime change. 

The US has pushed to end such medical missions, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio calling them a “form of human trafficking.”

Several Latin American and Caribbean nations, including Honduras and Jamaica, have abruptly shut down the missions and sent Cuban doctors home.

Cuban doctors have played an important role in areas of Latin America lacking basic medical infrastructure, such as the Amazon and parts of Central America.

Ms Sheinbaum on Wednesday defended the programme and said that “we can’t forget” the help Cuban doctors offered during the pandemic and across the country. 

Mexico has been a defender of Cuba since the country’s revolution, sending oil shipments to Cuba for years to help stave off a deeper energy crisis.

But Ms Sheinbaum’s government halted those shipments when Mr Trump threatened to slap tariffs on any nation that does so, instead sending aid shipments.

Cuba is plagued by nationwide blackouts resulting from a crumbling power grid and the ongoing oil blockade implemented by the US.

Talks are in the early stages between the island and the US on the blockade, and Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel has said his predecessor, Raul Castro, the brother of revolutionary Fidel Castro, is involved.