Biden administration shines spotlight on Haiti's shaky transition

The Biden administration put diplomatic weight behind its Haiti policy with Secretary of State Antony Blinken making an official visit to the beleaguered country Thursday.

Blinken is doubling down on Haiti — a diplomatic conundrum that’s stumped Democratic and Republican administrations — 60 days before a hotly contested presidential election in the United States.

“It's not a queen-making visit type — or a president-making type event. But I think it's a pretty big deal. I think it shows high-level interest in Haiti. I also think it shows that the administration thinks it's got something significant at stake,” said Brian Concannon, executive director of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti.

The Caribbean country is in the midst of an experimental transition to democracy, led by a seven-member Transitional Presidential Council that was created to pick up the pieces after the previous government’s collapse.

Blinken played an instrumental role in the creation of the council, developing the idea alongside Caribbean Community (Caricom) leaders at a series of meetings in Kingston, Jamaica, in March.

“Since that time, Haitians have stood up a Transitional Presidential Council, the government with an interim prime minister, cabinet, and we see these institutions moving forward do the work of delivering for the Haitian people,” Blinken said Thursday in Port-au-Prince.

“The United States appreciates Haiti's leaders putting aside their differences together to put the country on the path to free and fair elections.”

Haitian advocates were critical of limited Haitian representation at the Kingston meetings, and many have remained critical of the council’s composition.

The council’s installment came shortly before the deployment of a Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission led by Kenyan police, a plan that was widely panned by human rights experts.

“Introducing foreign troops into Haiti without proper human rights training, use of force protocols and accountability mechanisms further endangers the population, particularly children, who endure the daily onslaught of violence,” Ana Piquer, the Americas director at Amnesty International, said in July.

That violence has become fodder for the U.S. media landscape, with notorious gang leaders such as Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier drawing attention away from the country’s civil society, its elites and the complex political groupings behind them.

One such grouping, the Haitian Tèt Kale Party (PHTK), formally ran the country between 2017 and 2024 through the presidency of Jovenel Moïse, who was assassinated in 2021, and the nominally transitional government under Ariel Henry, whose resignation in April paved the way for the transitional council.

But Moïse was the chosen successor of former President Michel Martelly, technically not a member of the PHTK, but the political force behind its creation and Moïse’s rise to power.

Martelly was sanctioned in August by the United States, accused of playing a role in the international illicit drug trade.

“They sanctioned him for pretty serious stuff, and they said he was running gangs, they said he was running guns, they said he was trafficking cocaine to the United States, you know, really serious accusations, and but then they hit him with these super light sanctions that are totally disproportionate to the misconduct alleged and disproportionate to what Martelly got in Canada for the same conduct, or what other Haitians got in the U.S. from the same conduct,” Concannon said.

Martelly is still believed to play an important leadership role in the PHTK and related groups, including parties represented directly in the transitional council.

“It's really kind of surprising how light the sanctions are on him for, again, very serious conduct. And that makes me think that that that was just a, you know, they weren't really trying to punish him. They were trying to nudge him to do something that they wanted him to do,” Concannon said.

“And my most likely guess on that ‘something’ is to get his party to be more cooperative with the transitional government.”

On his visit, a week after sanctions were announced against Martelly, Blinken touted the Biden administration’s investments in Haiti, including humanitarian assistance and the potential for investments to revive the country’s economy.

His focus, however, was on the short- and medium-term political goals of the transitional council.

“I think the first thing to get right is to make sure that the security foundation is there, and that's what's happening now with the MSS and the Haitian National Police — a lot more work to be done — starting to move. And then we also want to make sure that Haiti is back on a clear democratic track, and that means elections next year,” Blinken said.