The Trump Administration designated a powerful power of armed gangs on Friday that has looted Haiti and launched attacks against state institutions as a terrorist group by the Trump administration.
It is likely that the measure worsens an already humanitarian crisis in Haiti, experts said, since gangs control much of the country’s economy and infrastructure, including ports and main roads, and extort the companies and the local population.
The designation of President Trump gives the United States a wide power to impose economic sanctions on criminal groups, and enhanced equally to take military measures. But it also allows to impose sanctions on anyone whom the batteries of the United States have deals with gangs.
“The era of impunity for those who support violence in Haiti have ended,” said Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a publication on social networks.
Depending on how it is applied, the statement could end with almost all trade with Haiti, some experts say, since Virtual and no product can enter or leave the capital, port prince, without the payment of the city control game.
The gang coalition, called Viv Ansanm, “living together” in the Haitian Creole, was formed in 2023 and promised to protect civilians, but then immediately launched 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 due to security groups.
Some gangs, which under the designation of Mr. Trump are now considered transnational terrorist organizations, have spread beyond Haiti, establishing the bonds of smuggling weapons with Florida and the Dominican Republic.
The terrorist statement also attacked the GRIF gang, whose fortress is in the department of Artibonita, a key agricultural region north of the capital that is considered the basket of Pan de Haiti. The gang is a battery or perpetrates a horrible massacre last year that left more than 100 dead people.
Haitian private sector companies, including port operators, owners of bus companies and cell phone suppliers are obliged to pay rates to gangs, experts say. That could potentially expose them to the sanctions of the United States.
Many beneficial organizations and help agencies must also work with gangs that have seized the neighborhoods where they operate.
“What about a church or an NGO that feeds a 13 -year -old boy who is affiliated with gang?” Brian A. Nichols said, who served in the Biden administration as Secretary of State for the United States for the Western Hemisphere. “I am deteriorated by criticizing any effort to help Haiti, but it is unlikely that this designation damages gangs. It is more likely to cause auxiliary damage.”
In Haiti, some asked what the terrorist label could mean to kidnap the victims and their families who are forced to pay bailouts.
“The victims of kidnapping have no choice but to pay gangs. What should they do?” Marie Lucie Bonhomme said, a prominent Haitian journalist and radio presenter whose husband was kidnapped for two months in 2023.
Even so, some experts said they doubted that the United States government would apply sanctions so widely.
A spokeswoman for the United States Department of the United States did not respond immediately to a request for comments.
Trump and his AIDS could see their movement as a “necessary measure to try to basically increase the cost so high that people stop doing business with armed groups,” said Jake Johnston, an associate of Sany research at the Center for Economics and Politics.
But historical, he added, that is not what happens. “It simply pushes people more and more in illicit markets and illicit economies.“
Development banks, donors, aid agencies, imports, exporters, remittance companies and even foreign embassies “will have to consider all their transactions in a way that does not before before,” said Johnson.
Life for Haitians could get worse even more, experts said.
Food and fuel, already in shortages and exams, could become more scarce if truck drivers do not pay tolls to gangs that control the roads. Bus conductors must also pay rates to gangs.
Even so, some welcomed the terrorist statement.
“It’s something that I have been waiting for a long time,” said Jeff Frazier, an American businessman who was kidnapped in Haiti in 2023, and remained for 43 days.
“I do not hope that the Trump administration intends to come after those who have been forced to pay bailouts,” Frazier said. “The intention is to go bad.”
Claude Joseph, former interim prime minister, said he and four other Haitian politicians asked Mr. Rubio in January to label gangs as terrorist organizations.
“These gangs are killing people in Haiti,” he said. “It is important to put them on the list so that we can use non -classical forms to fight them.”
When asked about the potential damage for entrepreneurs and other people extorted by gangs, Mr. Joseph said he expected the United States to take this into account. “The Haitian government and the United States should see that,” he said. “They may need to have some exemptions.”
André Paulre Port-Au-Prince contributed reports.
