Biden wary of U.S. troops for Haiti aid mission as crisis worsens

By Washington Post

President Joe Biden is weighing a joint effort with neighboring countries to aid Haiti, as rapidly deteriorating safety and health conditions stoke fears that intervention in the Caribbean nation may be necessary to prevent collapse.

The U.S. is searching for options – including potentially a mission led by another country – to quell violence, confront armed gangs, address a spiraling humanitarian crisis and respond to a cholera outbreak, people familiar with the deliberations said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

While nothing has been formally ruled out, dispatching U.S. troops is unlikely and not under advanced consideration, the people said. Biden’s administration is wary of doing anything unilaterally, and instead is studying what joint efforts with neighbors – including Canada and Latin American countries – might be feasible, the people said.

Further steps could include more funding, material aid, security forces or trainers being dispatched to the country, according to the people.

With midterm elections that will determine whether Democrats keep control of Congress just two weeks out, Biden’s appetite for any foreign intervention to quell a brewing humanitarian crisis is seen as minimal.

He’s under substantial pressure from Republicans over a spike in the number of migrants from Latin American nations including Cuba, Haiti and Venezuela crossing the southern border, and GOP lawmakers are starting to balk at providing aid to Ukraine. Should Republicans win control of one or both chambers of Congress, the political cost to Biden of intervening in Haiti would rise.

After World War II, the U.S. contributed soldiers for peacekeeping missions around the world, and missions to Haiti, Somalia and the Balkans all featured a strong American presence in the 1990s. But the deaths of 18 U.S. soldiers in Somalia, documented in the book “Black Hawk Down,” led the U.S. to drastically scale back its involvement in such missions.

Haiti has endured decades of political instability, receiving several humanitarian missions and billions in foreign aid assistance that did little to take the country out of its cycle of poverty and lawlessness. The situation only worsened after the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in 2021, which makes any foreign intervention even less likely to succeed.

On the streets of the Caribbean island, many recall the U.S.-led military intervention of 1994 called “Uphold Democracy,” and the decadelong U.N. mission to Haiti that ended in 2017. Neither of them brought the political stability or the end of violence they promised, said Joseph Harold Pierre, a Port-au-Prince-based political analyst.

“Those missions were not successful because in Haiti we did not have a government capable of guiding those missions,” he said.

To make things more complex, Prime Minister Ariel Henry is seen as illegitimate by many after he swept into power without an election following Moïse’s assassination.

Thousands of Haitians are enduring famine-like conditions as gang violence and protests paralyze the economy and hamper delivery of food, the U.N.’s World Food Programme has said. Haiti has asked the U.N., the U.S. and others for troops to help tamp down the violence and control gangs.

With the situation at a boil, neighboring nations are grappling with how to help without stoking the unrest or repeating interventionist mistakes of the past, the people said.

The U.S. and Canada have delivered armored vehicles this month to Haiti, with USAID staff already on the ground. The UN’s Security Council voted last week in favor of a solution proposed by Mexico and the U.S. to impose sanctions on certain figures in Haiti who the multilateral body said are fueling unrest.

The U.S. and its partners “do see the status quo as unsustainable given the security situation, the public health situation, the economic situation that Haitians are confronting,” State Department Spokesman Ned Price said. “We’re continuing to work with our partners to determine the next steps.”

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said last week that conversations were ongoing “with partners with necessary experience that have expressed the interest of leading that effort and contributing to a non-UN mission.”

“The United States is considering the most effective ways to directly support, enable, and resource such an effort,” she said.

Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, meanwhile, has spoken this month with leaders from the region, including an Oct. 14 call with the president of Suriname, Chan Santokhi, who chairs Caricom, a group of Caribbean nations.

The Canadian leader also mustered a meeting of his Incident Response Group, a mix of high-level ministers and aides. Trudeau and Foreign Minister Melanie Joly are weighing options, the people said.

Trudeau and Caricom leaders discussed the need to remove gang blockades around the country exacerbating a humanitarian crisis, curb rising hunger and impose sanctions on corrupt officials. They also addressed ways to “facilitate inclusive, Haitian-led dialog toward free and fair elections,” Trudeau’s office said in a statement.