By Mauro Ramos on April 23, 2025
Marco Rubio with Fritz Alphonse Jean, new president of Haiti’s Transitional Presidential Council (CPT). Photo: Wikimedia Commons
“While claiming to support the Haitian people, the United Stateshas significantly cut foreign aid and continued to deport Haitian immigrants under the pretext of national priorities, just when Haiti urgently needs support,” Geng Shuang, China’s deputy permanent representative to the United Nations (UN), said on Monday, April 21, at the Security Council.
“What is even more shocking is that … they also recently extended their so-called 10% basic tarriff to Haiti, one of the least developed countries in the world,” the Chinese ambassador continued.
Geng said China is deeply concerned about the “worsening crisis in Haiti and the rampant gang violence, the near collapse of the state and the desperate situation of the people.”
The speech was made during a special session on the Caribbean country, where the special representative of the General Secretariat for Haiti, María Isabel Salvador, presented a report on the country, which has been suffering a territorial expansion of armed groups since January.
The imposition of tariffs was one of China’s complaints against the US at the Security Council. Along with it, the Chinese representative criticized the Trump administration’s cuts in foreign aid and the deportation of Haitian immigrants.
“This display of unilateralism, protectionism and economic bullying is not only aimed at so-called competitors, such as China … but also inflicts damage on a nation on the brink of collapse, such as Haiti, where the population is in dire straits,” he said.
“This is not only cruel and absurd, but also deeply moving,” Shuang concluded.
Report on Haiti
According to María Isabel Salvador, in February and March, 1,086 people were killed, 383 were injured, and more than 60,000 were forcibly displaced in the last two months. Since December of last year, one million people have been displaced.
“The humanitarian crisis in Haiti has reached critical levels,” said Salvador, who is also Head of the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH, in French).
“Cholera outbreaks and gender-based violence – especially in places of displacement – are widespread; insecurity has closed 39 health facilities and more than 900 schools in Port-au-Prince,” the representative reported.
She warned that Haiti was approaching “a point of no return.” “As gang violence continues to spread to new areas of the country, Haitians are experiencing increasing levels of vulnerability and growing skepticism about the state’s ability to respond to their needs,” she said.
The role of the US in the crisis
Most of the speech by China’s deputy permanent representative to the UN was dedicated to denouncing the responsibility of the United States in the Haitian crisis. Of the three points listed by Geng, the last was that “the instigator of the crisis must assume responsibility,” in reference to the North American country.
“The United States has been the biggest external factor affecting Haiti’s security, stability and development” in the country’s history, Geng said.
“For more than a century, they [the US] have shamelessly mobilized troops, installed puppet governments and manipulated the Haitian constitution, meddling in the country’s political affairs,” the Chinese representative denounced.
China also denounced that the Americans have always been the “main source of weapons for Haiti.”
According to the 2024 report on the illegal arms trade in Haiti by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), gangs in the country have greater firepower than police forces, with the presence of US-made AR-15s, Israeli Galil assault rifles, and Russian AK-47s.
According to the report, there has been an increase in trafficking of increasingly sophisticated weapons since 2021.
Another criticism from China was the US’s meager contribution to the Multinational Security Support Mission (MMS) in Haiti. “In October 2023, they led the formation of the MMS mission, promising financial support. However, in the last year and the following years, their actual contributions have been relatively limited.”
In February of this year, Trump froze an additional USD 13 million by suspending all foreign aid for 90 days. “At one point, they even tried to convert the mission into a PKO [UN Peacekeeping Operation], citing a lack of funds, an apparent move to shift the burden onto the UN and its member states, treating them as little more than an ATM machine.”
This is because, as it is not a UN operation, MMS depends on voluntary contributions.
Other highlights on the situation in Haiti
The Chinese representative critically assessed the role of the United Nations, which has been operating in the country for more than three decades, but whose results “have fallen short of the scale of its efforts.”
“It is essential to learn from past experience and address the root cause of the crisis, providing more targeted, practical and results-oriented assistance,” Geng continued.
He also advocated supporting CARICOM and BINUH in continuing their “good offices to accelerate the implementation of a transitional agreement aligned with the realities of Haiti and widely recognized.”
“We hope the US will reflect on all this,” Geng urged.
“Haiti’s future should not be sacrificed for the sake of the US pursuing its own strategic interests, nor should ‘being too close to the US’ become a curse for Haiti,” he concluded.
Source: Brazil de Fato