On February 21st, the International Affairs Forum hosted speaker Jake Johnston for a private student session and White Pine Press interview. Johnston, Director of International Research at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, authored a book about the ongoing crisis in Haiti. The book, titled Aid State: Elite Panic, Disaster Capitalism, and the Battle to Control Haiti explores how much of the humanitarian crisis in Haiti is actually caused by the relationship the Caribbean country has with western powers, such as the US. In an exclusive interview, Johnston provides insight into the complexities of Haiti’s condition.

 

“Haiti's history is an important part of the story”, explains Johnston. Most people have heard of the Haitian revolution, as it was the first successful rebellion of enslaved people in history, but this came at a cost. Haiti was forced to pay an independence debt to France, and the nation’s economy had been reliant on the slave labor of people who were now free. So in order to pay this debt, Haiti had to take out loans from the United States, starting a centuries-long reliance on money from foreign nations.

 

“So you’re having a 120 year period where massive resources, the majority of Haitian resources, are going to pay external debt, all to compensate the French for the loss of their “property” in Haiti, which was the enslaved population”, says Johnston.

 

“How did [the US] make sure that they could get that money? The US militarily occupied Haiti. In fact, even before they occupied the country, they went to Haiti in 1914, and they took all of the gold from the central bank, they put it on a boat and they brought it to Citibank in New York”.

 

Johnston argues that this is a result of the US’ and France’s desire to penalize Haiti’s rejection of the western hemisphere’s reliance on the international slave trade. “I think it's really important to set that context because this is a country that was punished for what it did, and what it did is an unambiguously good thing for the world”.

 

Since then, Haiti’s economy has not had a chance to recover. This is largely due to the fact that the country’s government has relied on aid, mainly from the US. “We don't actually give money to other countries. We give it to US companies to do work in other countries”, Johnston says, and said US companies often don’t have the best interests of Haiti in mind. “We subsidize US farmers to provide surplus goods to haiti. That’s a benefit to US farmers, right?”

 

“We know what would make aid more effective and there are reasons why we don’t implement those changes, and it's because implementing those changes would hurt these special interests that are benefiting from the status quo, and frankly, they have more sway over the US political system than Haiti”. 

 

“Certainly the framing of everything is that it’s about our interest, not theirs. and so it's not terribly surprising that it's not working out great for [Haiti]”.

 

Aid is not the only way the US attempts to dominate Haiti. There are multiple instances of interference (and even complete fraud) in Haitian elections by the US. 

“Haiti’s never really had an opportunity to have a sovereign democracy. Its first free and fair election was in 1990”. Johnston refers to the election of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the first democratically elected president in Haiti after a long period of dictatorships. [1] 

 

But in 2015, it was found that a US-funded election in Haiti was fraudulent. “Nobody participated and it was all a big fraud”, says Johnston. The results caused thousands of Haitians to protest, pressuring the international community to stop the electoral process from being recognized. “For so long the international community had sort of gotten their way in Haiti. And this was the time where they didn't. They couldn't force that result on people”.

 

Intense poverty and the lack of a stable government are just some of the issues Haiti is facing. Another crucial part of the crisis is gang violence. In 2024, over 5,600 Haitians were killed in gang violence, and heavily armed gangs control up to 90% of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. This statistic is even more shocking considering the fact that between 30% to 50% of Haiti's gang members are under the age of 18. This has caused a lot of concern and debate over what should be done to mitigate the violence.

 

“It’s something that can’t happen strictly through force”, argues Johnston. “The rhetoric you’re hearing from some of these gang leaders is a more accurate analysis of the reality in Haiti than anything from the political class or foreign leaders”. Despite this, there are still many gang members who aren't necessarily politically motivated. But the poverty and lack of a real government in Haiti is a large reason why gangs form.

 

“We have to understand the context that these people exist in and why they might pick up a gun, right?” says Johnston. “One of the big gang leaders [in Haiti] as a child, [...] his life was picking through trash for scraps to try and sell and make ends meet and find meals. So, when somebody hands you a gun and says ‘here you can have power over your life, you can have food, you can have agency’, is anyone surprised by the choices people are making?”

 

“If you threw everybody in jail, and you don’t change that, it’s just gonna happen again”.

 

“Nothing has been done to stop the underlying dynamics that caused this. The status quo in Haiti is inherently unsustainable. You can’t maintain the level of inequality and poverty that exists in Haiti without force”. 

 

Haitians’ distrust of their government and the lack of a social contract accelerates the prevalence of gangs. Because the government relies on foreign aid, it lacks power to protect or provide for its people. “[there was] a 13-year UN peacekeeping operation. Now that didn’t allow the government to undertake reforms or extend their reach or provide services, it allowed them not to. They could stay in power against a really angry population because there were 13,000 foreign troops to protect them”, Johnston explains.

 

“This is where foreign intervention comes into play because you don’t need [Haitian] support to keep your power, all you need is the support of the national community. And if you keep that, you can continue to neglect the population”.

 

It’s worth noting that the overwhelming majority of the arms used by Haitian gangs are supplied by the US. According to Johnston, “Probably 90% of the guns in Haiti are coming from the United states. Part of the issue is that it’s really easy to buy guns in this country”. There is somewhat of an effort from US officials to manage this, but it is clearly not effective. “When the US [investigates] arms trafficking cases, they go after straw buyers. It’s whack-a-mole. You take them out and find a thousand more people the next day who would be willing to do that for some extra cash. But those cases never go beyond that. We know a lot more, and we could do a lot more to actually enforce those laws”.

 

“I think arms trafficking is like the number one thing [...] the US can do about security in Haiti”.

 

The Trump administration has recently declared a 90-day freeze on all foreign assistance, so what does this mean for Haiti? It’s hard to know if this means the US will stop giving aid to Haiti entirely, but Johnston argues that a decrease in funding may actually be beneficial to Haiti in the long term. “In the very short term, the reduction of US assistance is going to cause harm. I mean, 40% of the health budget comes from donors. Now of course, that whole system is not sustainable for Haiti and it is not terribly effective for Haiti. So, in the long run, the opportunity is that it will force the kinds of reforms and the kinds of initiatives that are necessary to actually build a public system, to actually generate that revenue and take care of its population”.

 

“My guess on if that happens or what the timeline is for something like that happening…I’m not terribly optimistic. But it is an important opportunity and it has to happen”, says Johnston.

 

Ultimately, the crisis in Haiti cannot end unless a lot of things change in the United States. “What we can do”, in Johnston’s opinion, “is demand our government be better, have a better foreign policy, and understand that what happens here matters to the rest of the world”.

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