Haiti: A story of US complicity in the plight of the world’s first Black republic

Discover the deeper history behind Haiti’s struggles and the ongoing impact of foreign intervention

The story of Haiti is often told as a tragic tale of internal corruption and natural disasters. However, a closer look reveals a far more sinister narrative, one in which the very nations that profess democratic ideals have been the primary architects of its impoverishment. As Dr. Jemima Pierre, professor of Global Race at the University of British Columbia and member of Black Alliance for Peace, explained to BreakThrough News in a powerful interview, the United States, in particular, has played a leading and consistent role in systematically undermining Haitian sovereignty and draining its wealth for over a century.

The story of Haiti is often told as a tragic tale of internal corruption and natural disasters. However, a closer look reveals a far more sinister narrative, one in which the very nations that profess democratic ideals have been the primary architects of its impoverishment.

The escalating crisis of 2025

In 2025, Haiti’s crisis has escalated dramatically, with more than 1,500 people killed and over 600 injured between April and June alone, according to UN reports. Armed gangs control at least 85% of Port-au-Prince, spreading violence and terror far beyond the capital into the Centre and Artibonite departments. This violence includes extrajudicial killings, widespread sexual violence — 85% of documented sexual assaults are gang-related — and horrific acts such as the massacre and burning of elderly men in voodoo rituals. Over 1.3 million people have been displaced, many fleeing brutal gang rule. The security forces, self-defence militias, and gangs all contribute to a climate of impunity and despair, deepening the humanitarian emergency. Amid this chaos, private mercenaries, and foreign actors deepen Haiti’s instability, obstructing true sovereignty and progress.

As Dr. Jemima Pierre explained to BreakThrough News in a powerful interview, these ongoing atrocities must be understood within a broader history of US imperialism and intervention that has systematically undermined Haitian self-determination for over a century.

Imperialism rooted in economic strangulation

The story of US complicity begins not with a direct action, but with a silent, decades-long refusal to acknowledge the world’s first Black republic. After Haitian revolutionaries audaciously defeated Napoleon’s armies and declared independence in 1804, they were met with a punitive international embargo, led by the slave-holding powers of the time, including the United States. This isolation was a prelude to a more formal economic stranglehold. When France later demanded that Haiti pay a crippling “independence debt” of 150 million francs to compensate former slaveholders for their lost “property,” the United States became a key enforcer of this immoral extraction.

The 1915–1934 US occupation: Sovereignty undermined

The true nature of American involvement, however, crystallised in 1915 with a full-scale military occupation. For nineteen years, the US Marines controlled Haiti, rewriting its laws to allow foreign land ownership, overturning a core tenet of the revolution and seizing control of its national treasury. The occupation’s brutal suppression of dissent and its primary goal of ensuring debt payments to American banks established a clear pattern: Haiti’s sovereignty was secondary to US economic and strategic interests.

This pattern continued through the Cold War in the form of support for the vicious Duvalier dictatorship. Despite the well-documented horrors of “Papa Doc” and “Baby Doc” Duvalier, who terrorised the population with their Tonton Macoutes death squads, the US government provided critical financial and political support. The Duvaliers were a known commodity, brutal but fiercely anti-communist, and that was enough for Washington to overlook the suffering of the Haitian people in the service of its geopolitical aims.

This longstanding contempt for Haitian self-determination reached its peak with the undermining of Haiti’s first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. His populist agenda threatened the established oligarchy and foreign interests. The video argues that the US was deeply implicated in both coups against him. The first, in 1991, saw US-backed factions remove him from power. The second, in 2004, was a full-blown orchestration, culminating in what many describe as his kidnapping by US forces and forced exile, replaced by a US-friendly, unelected regime.

Alongside this political meddling ran a parallel thread of economic sabotage. Under the guidance of the US-dominated International Monetary Fund and World Bank, Haiti was forced to slash tariffs and open its markets. The result was catastrophic. Heavily subsidised American rice flooded the country, decimating local agriculture and forcing a nation of farmers to become dependent on foreign imports. This neoliberal shock therapy destroyed Haiti’s food sovereignty and cemented its status as an impoverished client state.

The role of private mercenaries

In Haiti’s ongoing crisis, private mercenaries have played a disturbing role in escalating violence and deepening instability. Erik Prince, founder of the notorious Blackwater private security firm, has been implicated in channelling weapons and armed drones into Haiti under the guise of restoring security. As Pierre reveals in the interview, this militarised presence is less about genuine protection and more about profit and imperialist control. The violent tactics deployed by mercenaries serve US geopolitical interests by suppressing Haitian self-determination and entrenching foreign dominance. This new layer of militarised intervention builds on a century-long pattern of US interference, from economic embargoes and punitive debts imposed after Haiti’s 1804 revolution to military occupations, support for oppressive regimes like the Duvaliers, and orchestrated coups against democratically elected leaders. The involvement of private military contractors like Prince’s firm is a stark reminder of how profit and imperial control continue to weaponise violence against vulnerable populations.

Haiti’s present crisis cannot be understood outside this framework of historical subjugation. The nation’s poverty is not an accident of history but a deliberate outcome — a story of a freedom fight punished, a democracy undermined, and an economy strangled. From enforcing the independence debt to orchestrating coups, the United States has been a primary agent in ensuring that the Haitian revolution would never be allowed to truly succeed, maintaining a century-long complicity in the impoverishment of a nation.