“While claiming to support the Haitian people, [the United States] has significantly cut foreign aid and continues to deport Haitian immigrants under the pretext of national priorities, just when Haiti urgently needs support,” said Geng Shuang, China’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations (UN), on Monday night (21) at the Security Council.
“What is even more shocking is that […] they have just extended their so-called 10% basic tariff to Haiti, one of the least developed countries in the world,” continued the Chinese ambassador.
Geng said that China is deeply concerned about the “worsening crisis in Haiti and its rampant gang violence, the near collapse of the state and the desperate situation of the Haitian population.”
The statement was made during a special session on the Caribbean country, where the General Secretariat’s special representative for Haiti, María Isabel Salvador, presented a report on the country, which has been coping with the territorial expansion of armed groups since January.
At the UN Security Council, China complained about tariffs imposed by the US. The Chinese representative also criticized the Trump administration’s cutting of foreign aid and the deportation of Haitian immigrants.
“This display of unilateralism, protectionism and economic bullying not only targets so-called competitors such as China (….) but also inflicts damage on a nation on the verge of collapse, such as Haiti, where the population faces huge problems,” he said.
“This is not only cruel and absurd, but also deeply heartbreaking,” Shuang concluded.
Report on Haiti
According to María Isabel Salvador, in February and March of this year, 1,086 people were killed, 383 were injured, and more than 60,000 were forcibly displaced. Since December last year, 1 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).
“Outbreaks of cholera and gender-based violence – especially in displacement sites – are widespread. Insecurity has closed 39 health facilities and more than 900 schools in Port-au-Prince [Haiti’s capital],” she said.
She warned that Haiti is approaching “a point of no return”. “As gang violence continues to spread to new areas of the country, Haitians experience increasing levels of vulnerability and growing skepticism about the state’s capability to respond to their needs,” she lamented.
US role in the crisis
Most of the speech by China’s deputy permanent representative to the UN focused on denouncing US responsibility for boosting the Haitian crisis. Of the three points Geng listed, the last was that “the instigator of the crisis must take responsibility.”
“The United States has been the biggest external factor affecting Haiti’s security, stability and development” throughout the Caribbean country’s history, said Geng.
“For more than a century, they [the US] have brazenly deployed 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 arms 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 more firepower than police forces, with the presence of US-made AR-15s, Israeli Galil assault rifles and Russian AK-47s.
Also according to the report, there has been an increase in the trafficking of increasingly sophisticated weapons since 2021.
Another criticism from China was the meager contribution of the US to the Multinational Security Support Mission (MMS) in Haiti. “In October 2023, they led the formation of the MMS mission, pledging financial support. However, in the past year and beyond, their actual contributions have been relatively limited.”
In February of this year, Trump froze another US$13 million, pausing all foreign aid for 90 days. “At one point, they even tried to convert the mission into a UN Peacekeeping Operation, claiming a lack of funds, an apparent act to shift the burden onto the UN and its member states, treating them as little more than an ATM.”
As it is not a UN operation, the 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 active in the country for more than three decades, but whose results “have often fallen short of the scale of the efforts.”
“It is essential to learn from past experience and address the root cause of the crisis by providing more targeted, practical and results-oriented assistance [to Haiti],” Geng continued.
He also advocated supporting Caricom and Binuh in continuing their “good efforts to accelerate the implementation of a transitional agreement in line with the realities of Haiti and widely recognized”.
“We hope that the US reflect on all of this,” Geng urged.
“Haiti’s future should not be sacrificed in the name of the US in pursuit of its own strategic interests, nor should ‘being too close to the US’ become a curse for Haiti,” he concluded.
