Ex-Haiti envoy slams ‘deeply flawed’ approach of Biden admin
A former special envoy to Haiti blames what he views as former President Joe Biden’s absentee approach to decision-making for the current woes afflicting the Caribbean nation.
Daniel Foote served as special envoy to Haiti in 2021 but resigned in protest over what he said was the administration’s failed approach of supporting unpopular and unelected leaders.
“All of the governments that the U.S. has backed or anointed or imposed in the last 110 years have not represented the Haitian people,” Foote said. He said the Biden administration backed the then-unelected Prime Minister Ariel Henry solely for his unwavering loyalty despite lingering questions about how Henry rose to power.
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Suspects in the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise are shown to the media, along with the weapons and equipment they allegedly used in the attack, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on July 8, 2021. (AP Photo/Joseph Odelyn)
Foote has been involved with Haiti since the devastating 2010 earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people. He now believes the country has descended into near-total collapse.
“It’s a thousand times worse now because we broke whatever weak social contract there was between the people and the government. And there has been no government since basically 2012. It’s a failed state.”
A recent U.N. report revealed that more than 1 million people have been displaced due to gang violence in Haiti, nearly 10% of the population. Another report indicated that 85% of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, is under gang control.
Foote said he never met Biden while serving as envoy, claiming that by then, Biden had “deteriorated to the point that they didn’t want him to see a lot of people.” Instead, he said, Victoria Nuland, undersecretary of state for political affairs, and U.S. Ambassador to Haiti Michele Sison devised the plan to support Henry.
Foote said he recalled a remark that Biden allegedly made as a senator in 1994: “If Haiti just quietly sunk into the Caribbean, or rose up 300 feet, it wouldn’t matter a whole lot in terms of our interests.”
“That explains Joe Biden’s approach to Haiti,” Foote said.
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Police stop a motorist in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on April 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
Biden’s spokesperson and Sison did not respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment.
Nuland rejected Foote’s accusations, calling them “completely false” and referred Fox News Digital to former Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Brian Nichols.
“What I observed that there was intense coordination, and there was not one person or two people who would make a significant decision on the policy,” Nichols said, noting that he got the job roughly a week before Foote resigned on Sept. 21 and so was not involved in earlier decisions. “All issues were debated extensively internally at multiple levels, all the way up to the principals, that’s the Cabinet secretary level.”
Foote said that in the past he felt no need for security while walking around Haiti because Americans were widely welcomed. Things are not the same anymore.
“Now the Haitians are looking at China, looking at Russia,” he said. “They’re like, ‘Somebody help us. The Americans just keep screwing us over,’ yet they still want the Americans to help them.”
A member of the G9 and Family gang patrols a roadblock in the Delmas 6 neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on March 11. (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)
The Biden administration committed around $600 million to fund an international security force, known as the multinational security support mission (MSS), composed of personnel from countries like Bangladesh, Kenya, Chad and Guyana. But Foote said he sees the MSS strategy as a waste of taxpayer money.
“They don’t have the security backbone to take on the gangs,” he said. “They need help. And that help is not 5,000 random police officers from a mishmash of 10 different developing countries led by the Kenyans, who have never led a security mission in history.”
Police from Kenya stand on the tarmac of the Toussaint Louverture International Airport after landing in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on June 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Marckinson Pierre)
Nichols defended the MSS, declaring their efforts “incredibly heroic.”
“Having seen them on the ground in Haiti, it’s an extremely professional force, extremely courageous and one committed to the mission,” he said.
Foote recommends that President Donald Trump send 60 U.S. special forces personnel to train an elite anti-gang unit in Haiti and reestablish a signals intelligence program to monitor gang communication. Without such action, he said, the consequences would extend far beyond Haiti’s borders.
“It’s just going to continue to create chaos right off the U.S. shores and create a massive surge in migration,” he said. “Because if you walk down the street in Port-au-Prince, you look around and think, ‘I can understand why people leave. Humans can’t live in these conditions.'”
President Joe Biden addresses the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 21, 2022. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
Jack Brewer, who played in the NFL before founding a global foundation that has been in Haiti since the devastating 2010 earthquakes, echoed Foote’s assessment.
“People are being burned alive, police officers are getting their heads bashed into the pavement – bloody, torturous deaths,” Brewer said. “One of my doctors had five of his close friends and relatives murdered. This all just happened this week.”
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Brewer said that any real change can come only from within Haiti.
“I’m talking about a culture that doesn’t accept stealing and doesn’t accept corruption,” he said. “Right now, culturally, it’s acceptable to steal, and that has to change. Until you fix the moral fabric of a nation and reinstate law and order, it doesn’t matter what America does.”
