Marco Rubio is visiting the Dominican Republic – but the crucial topic will be Haiti
The Dominican Republic has long been one of the United States’ key allies in the Caribbean, so much so that on at least two occasions when top diplomats visited during the Biden administration, their social media postings sounded more like a tourism commercial for the Caribbean country than a diplomatic readout of the discussions.
Now Marco Rubio is set to arrive on Wednesday evening, becoming the second U.S. secretary of state in five months to visit the country, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti.
Rubio and President Luis Abinader have no shortage of issues to discuss, from the upcoming Summit of the Americas in Punta Cana later this year, and the emerging influence of China, to Dominicans and Haitian migrants risking their lives through the dangerous stretch of water known as the Mona Passage to reach the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico.
But it is Haiti, its ongoing political instability and escalating gang warfare — and the implications for its closest and often contentious neighbor — that is poised to lead discussions if Abinader has his way.
A leading voice for more international assistance for Haiti’s security crisis and the need for the United Nations to intervene with a formal peacekeeping operation, Abinader has become concerned about the future of the Kenya-led Multinational Security Support mission and the spillover effect the Trump administration’s 90-day freeze on foreign aid could have on his country, which deported more than 276,000 Haitians last year.
“We are more concerned about the cuts affecting Haiti,” Abinader said earlier this week during his meeting with journalists in Santo Domingo when asked about the U.S. aid freeze and rollback of programs by the U.S. Agency for International Development.
No one is spared the atrocities of Haiti’s gangs, Dominican Foreign Minister Roberto Alvarez told the U.N. Security Council last month as he cited several recent gang killings. He mentioned the massacre of more than 207 people, most of them elderly, by the Wharf Jérémie gang in Port-au-Prince’s biggest slum, and the deaths of several journalists after gangs opened fire on them at the reopening of the largest public hospital in the capital.
The persistent humanitarian and institutional crises and escalating gang violence has led to Haiti being listed among 10 conflicts worldwide to watch this year by several organizations, including the International Crisis Group, Alvarez said.
“That perfect classification reflects the fact that in spite of this Security Council’s efforts and in spite of the important work done by several countries from among the international community, a great deal has yet to be done in order to achieve peace in Haiti,” he said. “The situation in Haiti… continues to worsen.”
Ahead of his visit to Santo Domingo, Rubio visited Panama, El Salvador, Costa Rica and Guatemala. Most of his messaging focused on migration and the need for the countries to reduce China’s influence in the Western Hemisphere. Though he is expected to stay on point in the Dominican Republic, observers are paying close attention to what he says about Haiti, the administration’s policy — and China. Beijing, along with ally Russia, hold veto power at the Security Council, which is mulling over a proposal to transform the under-resourced Kenya-led mission in Haiti into a formal U.N. peacekeeping force.
READ MORE: Mixed record on Haiti raises doubts about what Rubio would take on as secretary of state
During his Senate confirmation hearing, Rubio mentioned the Dominican Republic six times. He spoke about how it flipped from recognizing Taiwan to recognizing China, and he consistently mentioned the country in relation to the Haitian crisis.
The gangs operating in Haiti, Rubio said, aren’t just destabilizing the French- and Creole-speaking nation, but also threatening “to destabilize the Dominican Republic.”
“People don’t talk about the Dominican Republic enough and they face a real challenge because of Haiti and the instability next door,” he added.
Recent freezes on U.S. foreign aid, including a “stop work” order on $13 million in a United Nations trust fund to support the Kenya-led mission, the laying off of State Department contracted police advisers to assist the mission and Haiti National Police, and other decisions concerning USAID funding, are all raising concerns about future U.S. commitments on the island.
The decisions and actions, some observers worry, do not align with Rubio’s stated comments either about the Haitian gangs’ threats to the Dominican Republic or support for the multinational fight to eradicate them.
An ongoing siege in the hills above Haiti capital has left at least 150 dead, the head of local human rights organization, Fondasyon Je Klere/Eyes Wide Open, said Wednesday as the head of the Kenya-led mission, Force Commander Godfrey Otunge, sought to calm fears about the end of U.S. support.
The frozen U.S. contribution to the United Nations-controlled Trust Fund for the security mission, which had $110.8 million in deposits, Otunge said, “represents less than 3% of the ongoing assistance to the [multinational mission] which continues to receive strong support from other contributing nations.
“The U.S. and other partner countries continue to provide logistical, financial, and equipment support ... with support flights arriving almost daily,” he added. “Both the Department of Defense and the Department of State remain actively engaged.”
A source with the mission said that contracts, which were set to expire in March, have been extended until September, which is one month before the mission’s U.N. authorization is set to expire.
A State Department spokesperson echoed Otunge’s comments about the U.S. funding freeze. Though some police advisers assigned to the mission remain laid off because of the funding freeze, the spokesperson said that concerns regarding the U.S. pausing its funding “are overblown.”
“The United States never abandoned support for Haiti,” the official said. “As of last Friday, State Department-funded mechanics, advisers to [Haiti National Police] SWAT teams and the MSS, medevac services, fuel deliveries and support for forward operating bases (FOBs) had resumed.”
Equipment deliveries will proceed smoothly in the future, said the official who added that “any reference to the U.N. Trust Fund is a red herring.”
“We encourage the U.N. to prioritize disbursements to Haiti. The Secretary will continue to prioritize what will most quickly and effectively impact the security situation for the better,” said the spokesperson.
Stephanie Tremblay, a U.N. spokesperson, said that taking into account the freeze, there is now $86.2 million available in the fund.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres is continuing his “urgent appeal to all member states to ensure the... mission receives the financial and logistical support it needs to succeed,” she said.
William O’Neill, the U.N. independent expert on human rights to Haiti, said the bottom line is that the Haitian national police are outnumbered and outgunned by the gangs.
The MSS plays a crucial part in the effort to support the police “to establish security, and to the Haitian government and civil society to implement humanitarian and development efforts that address the multiple causes of this crisis. Steady and predictable funding for the MSS requires all states to contribute, especially those in the region,” he said. “More stability in Haiti will reduce the pressure to migrate, which is in everyone’s interest. Now is the time to provide the MSS what it needs to succeed in its crucial mission.”
Haiti experts and supporters, including the head of its Transitional Presidential Council, Leslie Voltaire, are pinning a lot of hope on Rubio. His previous life as a U.S. senator representing Florida, home to one of the largest Haitian communities in the U.S., is repeatedly cited.
In an interview with French journalists this month, Voltaire said that there were “many Haitians” who voted for Rubio when he represented Florida as a senator, adding, “I will speak to the Haitians so that they lobby the former senator Marco Rubio so that Haiti is spared” from the catastrophic effects of the U.S. aid cuts.
Voltaire is not the only one counting on Rubio. Mark Hall, an investment banker who has been traveling to the Dominican Republic for 35 years, is hoping that Rubio’s visit will prove positive for a project he’s been involved in: the installation of smart technology along the two countries’ porous border.
The project was on course, Hall said, until the Biden administration pulled its support amid concerns about its estimated $300 million price tag for each of the countries. He is hoping Rubio’s visit will set the groundwork for the proposal to be revived, which would also require assistance for Haiti with its share of the cost.
“To spend that kind of money, $300 million, was significant in the budget for the Dominican Republic, notwithstanding the fact that Haiti doesn’t have any money,” said Hall, who represented the company involved. “My suggestion was that our government would actually loan the Haitian their side of the money and get paid back on the revenues that are being lost now.”
A USAID-financed report on Cross-Border Trade and Corruption along the Haiti-Dominican Republic Border by the Center for Strategic & International Studies says Haiti loses close to $1 billion annually from tax dodgers. While the issue has long been a concern of U.S. administrations, they have lacked a clear plan on how to address it. With the border becoming increasingly an issue due to the illegal trafficking of arms into the hands of Haitian gangs, some experts have suggested the stationing of security contractors or foreign troops.
Hall, instead, promotes the use of smart technology. “Security is only going to get worse. So let’s get a border that works,” he said. The monitoring system includes the installation of as many as 60 high-tech surveillance towers along the Dominican Republic and Haiti border, which will be similar to the towers that have been installed along the U.S. and Mexican border for Homeland Security. They allow for monitoring and communication on both sides to better collect taxes and crackdown on contraband.
The Zile Foundation, a Haitian rights organization in the Dominican Republic, noted that Rubio, despite his decision to travel to the island, “did not consider it appropriate to visit Haiti.”
“This is especially relevant at a time when the U.S. government has frozen funds allocated to the Kenya-led international security mission, shut down USAID aid programs, and, coincidentally, as Salvadoran troops arrive in Haiti,” the group said.
In a statement focused on the visit and the plight of those being returned back to Haiti, the rights group said the U.S. cuts and intensification of deportations by the U.S. — alongside those already being carried out by the Dominican Republic — risk exacerbating the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Haiti and put the social and economic stability of both countries at risk.
“Given the unique case of this island shared by two countries with a delicate relationship,” the Zile Foundation said, the U.S. administration should reconsider “its repatriation policies and promote a trilateral approach through dialogue between the United States, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.”
Before becoming secretary of state, Rubio was a powerful voice on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Among the bills he promoted was a 10-year extension of the duty-free textile legislation known as the Haitian Hemisphere Opportunity through Partnership Encouragement, or HOPE, Act and the Haitian Economic Lift Program, HELP Act, which has helped create tens of thousands of jobs in Haiti.
As he reintroduced the law in 2023, Rubio said: “It is in our national interest to help Haiti as it faces unimaginable hardships as a result of political corruption, natural disasters and rampant crime. The HELP Act is an important bipartisan measure that will extend trade benefits and boost the country’s largest industry.”
Despite bipartisan support from members of Congress and the Biden administration, the trade preferences, which expire later this year, failed to be extended. Legislation offering a five-year extension failed to make it back onto a bill that Congress stripped down.
With Rubio’s visit, supporters of the legislation are hoping to get it back onto Congress’s agenda and that it will pass before more workers in Haiti are laid off.
“It’s an opportunity to create jobs through the renewal of HOPE, HELP and if we can accomplish that and solve the security problems, thousands of jobs should be created and most could be created in Haiti,” said Dominican businessman Fernando Capellan, who runs the CODEVI industrial park in northeast Haiti along the border.
The textile sector, which employed 62,000 workers in December 2021, has seen the loss of more than 40,000 workers. It had less than 25,000 jobs in December before the extension of the trade preferences died in Congress.
Haiti presents “huge benefits” for the U.S, Capellan said.
“That’s why it’s important that we fix the security situation, renew HOPE HELP and address some other internal issues in Haiti to become a manufacturing hub for the region, and mainly for the U.S.”
This story was originally published February 5, 2025 at 3:04 PM.
