Trump labels Haiti’s powerful gangs as terrorists

A view of downtown Port-au-Prince, Haiti, from a Kenyan security force patrol vehicle, Sept. 25, 2024. (Adriana Zehbrauskas/The New York Times)

By Emiliano Rodríguez Mega and David C. Adams

A powerful alliance of armed gangs that has plunged Haiti into violence and launched attacks against state institutions was designated late last week as a terrorist group by the Trump administration.

The move is likely to worsen a dire humanitarian crisis in Haiti, experts said, since gangs control much of the country’s economy and infrastructure, including ports and major roads, and extort businesses and the local population.

President Donald Trump’s designation gives the U.S. broad power to impose economic penalties on the criminal groups, and potentially even to take military action. But it also allows sanctions to be imposed on anyone the United States accuses of having dealings with the gangs.

“The age of impunity for those supporting violence in Haiti is over,’’ Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday in a social media post.

Depending on how it is enforced, the declaration could end nearly all trade with Haiti, some experts say, since virtually no goods can move in or out of the capital, Port-au-Prince, without the payment of fees to the gangs, which control much of the city.

The coalition of gangs, called Viv Ansanm — “Living Together” in Haitian Creole — formed in 2023 and pledged to protect civilians, but then immediately launched attacks against communities, prisons, hospitals and police stations.

The gangs also forced former Prime Minister Ariel Henry to resign after he could not return to the country because of security concerns.

Some gangs, which under Trump’s designation are now considered transnational terrorist organizations, have spread beyond Haiti, establishing gun smuggling ties to Florida and the Dominican Republic.

The terrorist declaration also targeted the Gran Grif gang, whose stronghold is in the Artibonite department, a key agricultural region north of the capital that is considered Haiti’s bread basket. The gang is accused of perpetrating a horrific massacre last year that left more than 100 people dead.

Haitian private sector businesses, including port operators, bus company owners and cellphone providers are all obligated to pay fees to gangs, experts say. That could potentially expose them to U.S. sanctions.

Many charities and relief agencies also must work with gangs that have seized the neighborhoods where they operate.

“What about a church or NGO that feeds a 13-year-old child who is gang affiliated?” said Brian Nichols, who served in the Biden administration as the U.S. assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere. “I’m loath to criticize any effort to help Haiti but this designation is unlikely to harm the gangs. It is more likely to cause ancillary damage.”

In Haiti, some asked what the terror label might mean for kidnapping victims and their families who must pay ransoms.

“Kidnap victims have no choice but to pay the gangs. What should they do?” said Marie Lucie Bonhomme, a prominent Haitian journalist and radio host whose husband was kidnapped for two months in 2023. “They have to pay a ransom to free their loved ones. Everyone knows, the police and the government know.”

Some experts said they doubted that the U.S. government would apply sanctions so broadly. But a U.S. State Department spokesperson said in an email that people who “materially support” the gangs “will generally be ineligible for U.S. visas, admission to the United States and other immigration-related benefits.”

Trump and his aides might see their move as a “necessary measure to try and basically raise the cost so high that people will stop doing business with armed groups,” said Jake Johnston, a senior research associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

Historically, he added, that’s not what happens. “You just push people further and further into illicit markets and illicit economies.”

Development banks, donors, aid agencies, importers, exporters, remittance companies and even foreign embassies are “going to have to consider all of their transactions in a way that they wouldn’t before,” Johnson said.

Life for Haitians could get worse, experts said.

Food and fuel, already in short supply and expensive, could become scarcer if truck drivers do not pay tolls to gangs that control roads. Bus drivers also must pay fees to gangs.

Still, some welcomed the terrorist declaration.

“It’s something I’ve been waiting for a long time,” said Jeff Frazier, a U.S. businessperson who was kidnapped in Haiti in 2023 and held for ransom for 43 days.

“I don’t expect that the Trump administration intends to come after those who have been forced to pay ransoms,” Frazier said. “The intent is to go get bad guys.”

Claude Joseph, a former acting prime minister, said he and four other Haitian politicians asked Rubio in January to label the gangs as terrorist organizations.

“These gangs are killing people in Haiti,’’ he said. “It’s important to put them on the list so that we can use non-classic ways to fight them.”

Asked about the potential damage to businesspeople and others extorted by gangs, Joseph said he hoped the United States would take this into account. “The Haitian government and the U.S. should look at that,” he said. “They may need to have some exemptions.”