THE FOREIGN MINISTER ON THE CUBAN DOCTORS POLICY

The Foreign Minister Fred Mitchell explained the response of The Bahamas government to the U S threat to deny visas to Bahamian officials because of hiring Cuban doctors in The Bahamas. It is an edited transcript of the interview with Howard Grant on Monday 17 March 2025 on Guardian Radio:

Fred Mitchell:

Well the general statement that has been issued by the Foreign Ministry, and the Prime Minister has spoken about this is simply that we understand the nature of American politics and American foreign policy. They’ve a new administration and a new view of life and how that should operate. We also know that they are in a position to dictate terms. We are confronted with this policy with what I call a “Hobson’s choice.”

So it appears to be a choice. But in fact, it’s not a choice at all, so that’s the starting position. The prime minister has also indicated that the country will stand on its principles and will also speak the truth. We assume and it may be a rebuttable presumption, but we assume that we are dealing with rational actors and the rational actors will in fact be influenced by the truth. 

The truth is that there is no, as far as we can tell, there is no evidence of any violation of international labour recruitment norms by the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, and as far as we can tell from our CARICOM  neighbours, there is no such no such practices. 

Howard Grant

And the UN hasn’t said anything, human rights organisations haven’t said anything. No one also said anything outside of the Trump Administration. 

Fred Mitchell 

Well, this comes to the second position that I’d like to state.  It is that our understanding of US immigration laws with regard to the visas, or whether you get a visa done is that the application of visa policies is a subjective one, so it’s not an objective one, so that means it is whatever they interpret it to be. We have had the experience in this country of I would say, scores of payments, if not hundreds of payments, who every day complain to us about how they’re treated when they go to the US embassy about the decisions that are taken in turning down visas. 

Fred Mitchell 

So the application to a broader group of people, that would include foreign officials under this particular edict, is not different from what their normal policies are, which is that when you face a consular officer, there’s a subjective decision taken with regard to these things. The only thing that a small country can do in these circumstances is to simply say what the truth is, the decision is not ours it is theirs. It is their country. It’s their country, but what I would say also is from a legal point of view, there are certain treaty obligations, that it appears the United States has, with regard to access to their country for those who are representatives of countries who have to access the United Nations and the Organisation of American States. And again, our assumption is, we’re dealing with rational actors, and we assume that the United States will carry out and fulfil those treaty obligations. 

I think our position is that we’re not engaged in ideological warfare, we’re not engaged in a public shouting match, we’re simply stating what the facts are, what the truth is, and our assumption is that as we’ve dealt with rational actors in the past, we deal with rational actors in the future, and that the truth will out. 

Howard Grant  (23:28)

I’d like to know about this now because we’ve seen in America take on a very strong position after the introduction of this “Make America Great Again” even during the last Trump administration and now or the introduction of him being able to come back as 47 and being able to do exactly what he’s doing… And this is what I read, making America great again, has to do with an obligation to be able to empower his people in one way or another.  We see the tariffs, we see this kind of posture that he’s taken with Zelensky, we’ve seen a lot of things that have happened from the world over and we see that he’s taken on this strong, convicted position that come hell or high water, these are decisions that we’re going to be able to make, and I want to know whether or not we as a nation as a people despite our size, despite our position have taken on this out of a convicted position that this is the right thing to do for the Bahamian people. And if so, if we have taken all those things, what are some of the decisions that this administration has made to ensure that we can get the Bahamian people back on the right track economically. As, you know, as you indicated that economics is one of the major reasons why persons oust a government. And so with the desire that this administration has to be able to be back in the seat come 2026, what decisions have you made and empowerment that you can be able to ensure that is accessible to the Bahamian people that you could be able to put money in their pocket and empower them to make decisions going into the future. 

Fred Mitchell 

Well, the tourists have to keep coming to the country. The tourists who come to the country are in the main American tourists, so therefore, any government of The Bahamas has to ensure that those relationships, the relationship with the United States government, survives and survives on a good and rational basis. And that’s the basis from which we proceed. And I have no expectation that that’s going to change. The fact is, if you look at the history of our country, decisions have been made of an economic nature that have… those decisions have affected us in the past and we’ve simply adjusted to it, we do not have an army. We do not have the economic might to change all of those things. What we have is a set of values. We have familial ties with the United States and we have our moral voice and we exercise those voices again, I say, because the assumption is, although it may be rebuttable, the assumption is that you’re dealing with rational actors. And that’s always been the case in the past and we assume it’ll be the case in the future 

So. For example, in the history of the country you know that farming…there were decisions taken about farming in the 20th century, our farmers used to be able to access the United States. That’s how Sydney Poitier ended up being born in Florida, but then a decision was taken, which disallowed farmers from The Bahamas from selling their produce in the United States and we adjusted to that.

You know that there was bootlegging when the United States passed a constitutional amendment to prevent people from drinking liquor and during that time, we had a boom in our economy. During the Civil War, a similar thing, when the United States was blockading arms to get into the south, there was a boom here because people were running the blockade, so we’ve been tied in various ways to the United States economy. That’s going to continue to be the case and we saw after 2001 and we saw during COVID again that we have a food insecurity problem, because all of our food is imported from the United States, all of everything, all of the inputs into the tourism sector all come from the United States.

So policies, economic policies, which will affect costs will automatically be transferred to The Bahamas. One of the things we is a political party in power I have to go to great pains [to do] is public education on this question of why costs are the way they are and efforts to ensure that people understand the nature of the economy and why things are the way they are, so that the government does not get blamed for things which are beyond their control 

And we are seeking to find alternative markets.  That’s not as easy as it seems.  So for example, the shipping sector is now concerned that there’s going to be a million dollar charge on each ship that comes into US ports if those ships were made in China. 

…So there’s a group now of Bahamians in Florida who are connected to the shipping sector who are working with the government and we on a broader front have taken the exceptional step, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has agreed to provide additional funding to the foreign ministry to take on board people who are lobbyists at trying to access the various arms of the US government to discuss all of these matters because of the knock-on effects on the economy of The Bahamas. And, again the hope is again dealing with rational actors that we’ll have some carve outs if necessary. But the idea is not to get into any kind of confrontation on these issues, but to seek to negotiate our way forward in the best interests of The Bahamas

Howard Grant  (29:42)

Mia Motley and I think Ralph Gonsalves have taken on a very strong position and we’ve always… you’ve been able to see the newspaper that there are some voices popping up throughout the region, but actually speaks to the strength and the sovereignty of these particular places and one way or not, whether not, if deliberate or by design, or whether it happened organically. our nation in our country his voice has been attached to these particular things.

I want to know from you, whether or not this is by design, are you seeking to unify similar to what’s happening in the Caribbean? Unify your voices with influential leaders throughout the region to be able to speak to this rationale. 

Fred Mitchell 

Well, for good or ill, we are tied geographically to the United States and its economy. That’s the case for the entire Caribbean region, so even those who are far away or whether you’re close like us or far away, we’re in the same boat, so the arguments will be similar, although not the same and people will express themselves in various degrees of strength. 

Our own Prime Minister has indicated and gave a formal statement at the RF economic seminar outlook, when he indicated that the country’s voice had to be heard and that our country would speak up for its values, other prime ministers may have expressed it in In different ways. But there is a careful balancing act in all countries because you have a political cleavage in our country. 

For example, if you search my phone, you will find after the decision was made, the announcement was made, and we’ve known about this for a couple of weeks before it became a public issue. But after the decision was made, there was a sort of outrage and cry, “you can’t let these people bully us” was a lot of the comments coming. 

But at the same time, you also know that there’s a practical aspect to any policy, which is that you know, you can’t shut down the tourism sector, you can’t allow that to happen. You can’t allow us not to be able to import food, you can’t allow us to have goods which support the inputs in the sector and for our way of life. 

 So a government walks, the Bahamian government or any CARICOM government walks that thin line. 

And again, I go back to this: we assume we’re dealing with rational actors and rational actors will conform their policies in such a way that it does not damage their friends.