Haiti’s Troubled Path to Development

Introduction

Few countries have struggled with development like Haiti. Since breaking free from French colonial rule more than two centuries ago, the Caribbean state has weathered multiple foreign interventions, chronic political instability, social unrest, and devastating natural disasters. The confluence of these forces has transformed what was once the wealthiest colony in the Americas into the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

The United States has had a long and troubled history with Haiti, including a nearly twenty-year—and at times, bloody—occupation in the early twentieth century. Nevertheless, the two countries maintain close economic and social ties, with U.S. policy often aiming to bring political and economic stability to Haiti. However, bilateral relations have grown increasingly strained in recent years. Since returning to office in early 2025, President Donald Trump has sought to end deportation protections for Haitians, particularly by terminating the country’s temporary protected status designation. At the same time, his administration has focused on bolstering security in the country through diplomatic initiatives at the United Nations.

What are Haiti’s origins?

Spanish settlers arrived on the island of Hispaniola, which comprises modern-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic, in 1492. Within a quarter-century, diseases brought by Europeans, such as smallpox and measles, decimated the Indigenous Taíno population. Over the next three centuries, European colonizers imported hundreds of thousands of enslaved people from western and central Africa to harvest sugar, coffee, and timber—all lucrative exports.

In the early 1600s, French traders established an outpost on the western third of the island, which Paris annexed as the colony of Saint-Domingue several decades later. In the late 1700s, Toussaint L’Ouverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines, both formerly enslaved, led a rebellion against French rule that culminated with the creation of Haiti in 1804. The first postcolonial Black republic, Haiti became a beacon of abolition, self-determination, and racial equality.

What is Haiti’s economic situation?

Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Nearly two-thirds of the population lives below the poverty line and some 5.7 million people—almost half the population—are facing acute hunger. Compounding Haiti’s economic situation is its heavy dependence on external revenue, primarily from foreign aid and remittances sent by the diaspora, which makes the country more vulnerable to external shocks. 

Between 2010 and 2020, the United Nations allocated more than $13 billion in international aid for Haiti, primarily for disaster-relief missions and development programs. Meanwhile, Haitian remittances have steadily risen over the past two decades, totaling $3.9 billion in 2024 (15.5 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, or GDP) as the island continues to face multiple crises.

Beyond remittances and aid, trade has also shaped Haiti’s economy, averaging around 40 percent of total GDP since 2010. However, the country faces a substantial and persistent trade deficit because its imports significantly outweigh its exports, with the deficit reaching more than 15 percent of GDP in 2024. The country’s leading industries include agriculture and apparel manufacturing, with the United States serving as Haiti’s top export partner, followed by Canada and Mexico.

Today, Haiti remains heavily in debt. While international lenders canceled Haiti’s debt following its massive 2010 earthquake, additional loans, corruption, and mismanagement of aid caused public debt to rise in the ensuing years. Haiti’s general government gross debt in 2025 is forecast to equal roughly 12 percent of its GDP, according to the International Monetary Fund. Further upheaval including the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, back-to-back natural disasters in July and August 2021, and rampant gang violence have placed additional strain on the country’s economy.

Energy shortages, humanitarian aid cuts, and a depreciation of the gourde—Haiti’s currency—have further compounded the crisis. Tourism, once a vibrant sector, has declined. Compared to a record 1.3 million tourists in 2018, which drew in $620 million, Haiti welcomed only 148,000 travelers in 2021, generating around $80 million in profits. That same year, neighboring Dominican Republic welcomed five million tourists.

Why has Haiti had such difficulty developing?

Since its independence from France, Haiti’s development has been hampered by multiple forces, including interference of foreign powers, domestic political malfeasance, natural disasters, social instability, gang violence, and epidemics.

Foreign intervention and debt. Freedom from France in 1804 did not mean an end to foreign intervention in Haiti. France only recognized an independent Haiti in 1825 after its former colony agreed to pay reparations estimated to be worth $21 billion in today’s dollars. Over the next 122 years, as much as 80 percent of Haiti’s annual revenue went to paying off this debt.

The United States recognized Haiti only in 1862, when President Abraham Lincoln was championing emancipation at home and abroad. Subsequent U.S. administrations viewed Haiti through a mostly strategic lens. Wary of encroaching German influence in the Caribbean at the outset of World War I, President Woodrow Wilson ordered Marines to Haiti in 1915, purportedly to restore political stability. In the five years prior, seven Haitian presidents were ousted from office or assassinated. During the nearly two-decade occupation, from 1915 to 1934, the United States controlled Haiti’s security and finances; it also imposed racial segregation, forced labor, and press censorship, and deposed presidents and legislatures that opposed the U.S. presence. Some fifteen thousand Haitians were killed in rebellions against the U.S. administration, the bloodiest of which occurred in 1919 and 1929. President Franklin D. Roosevelt withdrew U.S. troops in 1934 as part of his Good Neighbor Policy.

Political instability. The U.S. withdrawal was followed by a series of unstable governments, which culminated in 1957 with the establishment of a dictatorship under François Duvalier and his son, Jean-Claude. Their twenty-nine-year rule was characterized by corruption that drained the nation’s coffers and human rights violations that left an estimated thirty thousand people dead or missing. In 1986, massive protests and international pressure forced the younger Duvalier to flee the country, giving way to a new constitution and democratic institutions [PDF].

However, political instability persisted. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the country’s first democratically elected president, was twice deposed in coups, in 1991 and 2004. Both prompted U.S. military interventions supported by the United Nations. In 2004, the United Nations launched a thirteen-year peacekeeping mission, the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) [PDF], which sought to restore order after the fall of the Aristide government. In 2011, the election of Michel Martelly as president was clouded by allegations of U.S. meddling on his behalf. He later stepped down after postponing presidential elections twice and ruling by decree for more than a year. Haiti was cast into a political vacuum in 2016, when fraud allegations against Martelly’s successor, Jovenel Moïse, postponed his official election until early 2017.

Moïse’s presidency saw mass protests and calls for his resignation in response to increased fuel prices and the removal of government subsidies, accusations of corruption, a worsening economic crisis, and dispute over his administration’s legitimacy. The widespread social unrest culminated in Moïse’s July 2021 assassination. U.S. authorities initially arrested several mercenaries, many of whom had received U.S. military training, on suspicion of involvement in the killing. In February 2024, a Haitian judge indicted several people in connection to the murder, including Moïse’s widow, former Prime Minister Claude Joseph, and the former chief of Haiti’s National Police. As of October 2025, only six people have been convicted, while dozens more are awaiting trial.

Ariel Henry, named prime minister only days before Moïse’s murder, took over as acting president. In early 2022, Henry himself survived an assassination attempt. Two years later, he resigned as gang violence effectively paralyzed the country. In May 2024, a transitional council tasked with reestablishing democratic order in Haiti appointed Garry Conille to be prime minister. Yet about six months later, he was dismissed by the council largely due to political infighting and replaced by businessman Alix Didier Fils-Aimé. The son of a well-known Haitian activist, Fils-Aimé has pledged to prepare for long-delayed elections and improve the country’s security.

Gang violence. Since Moïse’s 2021 assassination, armed gangs have sought to fill the political vacuum in Haiti. In July, the United Nations said that gangs had “near-total control” of the capital, Port-au-Prince, and had taken over major trade routes. According to UN figures, more than 5,600 people were killed in Haiti in 2024, and a record 1.4 million people had been forcibly displaced as of October 2025. Today, Haiti is “a country at war,” Anthony Franck Laurent Saint-Cyr, president of Haiti’s Transitional Presidential Council, told the eightieth UN General Assembly.

In 2023, the UN Security Council authorized the deployment of a multinational security support (MSS) mission to help combat gangs. Led by Kenya, the MSS was mandated to provide operational support to the Haitian National Police and protect critical infrastructure. However, the mission faced several challenges, including a lack of funding, equipment, and personnel, and in September 2025, the Security Council authorized a new, hybrid mission known as the Gang Suppression Force (GSF). The GSF has an expanded mandate—to counter gang violence and Haiti’s mounting humanitarian crisis—more personnel, and the power to arrest suspected gang members. Though the GSF began its operational mandate in early October, experts say it will take time to build the new force up to its target size and establish the necessary support.

Earthquakes and other disasters. Located on a geological fault line in a region prone to severe storms, Haiti is at greater risk [PDF] to natural disasters. Widespread deforestation has left the country especially prone to flooding and landslides, and the island is also susceptible to cyclones, hurricanes, tropical storms, and earthquakes.

A massive earthquake near the capital in 2010, for example, killed roughly 220,000 Haitians and displaced approximately 1.5 million more. At $8 billion, basic reconstruction costs surpassed the country’s annual GDP. Between 2015 and 2017, drought led to crop losses of 70 percent, and in 2016, Hurricane Matthew decimated the country’s housing, livestock, and infrastructure. Haiti was then struck by back-to-back disasters in August 2021, when a magnitude 7.2 earthquake rocked the southern peninsula, killing more than two thousand people, and displacing tens of thousands more. Days later, Tropical Storm Grace exacerbated the destruction, dumping heavy rains and triggering flash flooding and landslides. Inclement and dangerous weather has continued to strike the island as the effects of climate change intensify. 

Disease. Epidemics and aid mismanagement have further complicated matters. Dengue and malaria are common, as is cholera, which was introduced by UN peacekeepers after the 2010 quake. Despite being declared cholera-free in early 2022, a lack of access to health care and other essential services has since fueled a resurgence of the disease across the island.

How have recent U.S. administrations approached Haiti?

Washington’s stated aims have been to bring political and economic stability to Haiti while easing its humanitarian distress. 

Obama. The Barack Obama administration focused on strengthening Haiti’s national police force, boosting economic security, improving health and education services, and buttressing infrastructure. Under Obama, the United States led the international responses to Haiti’s crises, calling the country a “key foreign assistance priority” [PDF] in the Caribbean, and continued to support UN MINUSTAH. Since 2001, the United States has provided Haiti with billions of dollars in aid, a large portion of which has been for health and population-related programs and led by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

On trade, a series of accords struck by President George W. Bush and extended under Obama provide Haitian textiles with duty-free access to the United States. As of 2023, more than 82 percent of all Haitian exports were going to the United States. 

Immigration has also been a central issue in the U.S.-Haiti relationship. Between 1990 and 2015, the Haitian immigrant population in the United States tripled as Haitians fled political instability and natural disasters, though some previous U.S. administrations responded with harsh detention and repatriation policies. After the 2010 earthquake, Obama granted Haitians temporary protected status (TPS), which affords undocumented migrants from troubled countries the right to temporarily live and work in the United States. According to the latest American Community Survey, more than one million people of full or partial Haitian descent resided in the United States in 2023, making the country home to the largest Haitian population outside of Haiti.

Trump. The first Trump administration cut USAID’s humanitarian and development assistance to Haiti by nearly 18 percent in 2017 as part of broader reductions to U.S. foreign aid, but preserved funding for initiatives to reduce poverty, improve infrastructure and services, and promote democratic institutions. Several trade agreements from the Obama era likewise endured, including Haiti’s duty-free access to U.S. markets. When protests erupted across Haiti in 2019, Trump supported Moïse, who faced accusations of political illegitimacy and growing authoritarianism.

At the same time, Trump diverged from his recent predecessors on immigration, particularly with regard to TPS, which he sought to end for many countries. In late 2017, he denied some 59,000 Haitians an extension of their protected status, leading to the deportation of more than 2,500 [PDF] Haitians between fiscal years 2018 and 2020. However, Haiti’s TPS designation was subsequently extended several times due to the country’s instability and legal challenges that prevented the Trump administration from completely terminating it.

Biden. In January 2021, the Biden administration announced it was sending $75.5 million in development aid and health assistance to Haiti. Following the August earthquake, the administration approved an additional $32 million in disaster relief funds and authorized USAID rescue teams to be dispatched to the island. In response to the country’s deteriorating political and security situation, the Biden administration revived TPS for an estimated 155,000 Haitians, announcing a new eighteen-month designation [PDF] in May 2021. Haiti was redesignated for TPS beginning in February 2023. 

The administration also contributed another $50 million to Haiti’s recovery fund, later designating Haiti a priority country under the 2022 Global Fragility Act, which aims to provide funding to prevent and reduce violent conflict and promote stability in five at-risk countries and regions. In March 2023, as part of the Act’s implementation process, the White House announced a ten-year strategic plan [PDF] aimed at fostering stability in Haiti. 

Though he lifted Title 42, Biden maintained some aspects of Trump’s border policy. This included a restrictive new policy that allowed the government to deny asylum to migrants who did not previously apply for it in a third country and to those who cross the border illegally. Among those affected by the policy were thousands of Haitian asylum seekers; under Biden, more than twenty-seven thousand [PDF] asylum seekers were deported back to Haiti. To incentivize legal migration, meanwhile, the administration created new humanitarian parole programs for nationals of four Latin American countries, including Haiti.

While the White House never sent U.S. troops or additional military assistance to Haiti, the United States remained the largest humanitarian donor to the island under Biden.

What is the second Trump administration doing?

Trump is again scaling back the use of humanitarian programs as part of broader efforts to crack down on both legal and unauthorized immigration. In May 2025, the Supreme Court lifted a lower court’s injunction, allowing the Trump administration to terminate temporary legal status for more than half a million people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela that was granted as part of a humanitarian parole program created by the Biden administration. Then in June, Trump issued an executive order restricting entry from several countries, including Haiti, citing national security risks. That same month, the Department of Homeland Security announced it would terminate TPS protections for Haiti, effective early September, saying the country was “safe” for return. However, a federal judge blocked the termination from taking effect until February 2026, when it was originally scheduled to expire under a Biden administration extension.

At the same time, the United States has shifted its security approach to Haiti, cosponsoring with Panama the UN Security Council resolution that authorized the creation of the GSF to address escalating gang violence in the country. The resolution, which U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz said “offers Haiti hope,” also called for the establishment of a UN Support Office in Haiti to provide the GSF with logistical aid.