What Haiti needs now is Republican support | Opinion

At long last, there is hope for Haiti – that it can be rescued from anarchy and its people saved from mass starvation. And hope, too, for the United States – that we can be spared the consequences of a complete meltdown in Haiti, which could send desperate people in unprecedented numbers toward our shores and also export public health, law enforcement and national security problems for years to come.

Unfortunately, however, a serious obstacle remains in the way of a positive outcome: the continued blockage by Republicans in the U.S. Congress of urgently-needed security assistance.

Time is pressing, and it is past time for Republican members of Florida’s congressional delegation to press their recalcitrant colleagues to do the right thing. Otherwise, the Republican Party could be held responsible for the ensuing debacle in Haiti and punished in November – not least in Florida.

I have been a critic of the Biden administration’s slow-moving policy toward Haiti, but recent progress has been noteworthy. Haitian political actors have finally started putting together an interim government that can steer the country toward elections. U.S. diplomats have also managed to assemble a coalition of nations willing to participate in a mission to restore security in Haiti, indispensable to political and economic revival.

As reported in the Miami Herald, an initial detachment of Kenyan police officers is due to arrive in Haiti later this month. Contractors working for the Pentagon have been on the ground constructing a base for the Kenyans at the airport in Port-au-Prince which will be able to accommodate up to 1,000 personnel. The Haitian National Police (HNP) has meanwhile wrested control of the airport and its surroundings from criminal gangs, enabling a resumption of flights in the capital.

All that is needed to move forward is the necessary funding. Standing in the way are twoRepublicans – Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho and U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas – who continue to block release of $40 million in funds needed to support the Kenyans’ deployment, claiming they have not received satisfactory answers to questions about the nature and scopeof the operation.

While I respect the right of Congress to demand accountability, the fact is that situations of this kind are fluid and every detail cannot be spelled out in advance. This operation is critical to multiple U.S. national security interests and it needs to get off the ground before it is too late.

Moreover, other donors potentially willing to help underwrite the mission are sitting on the fence, waiting to see if the U.S. is serious or not. That is indeed the critical unanswered question, the key to which lies in Republican hands.

We are reaching a point where their intransigence invites suspicion. Could there be a political strategy at play – a calculus that a further, catastrophic worsening of the situation in Haiti could bolster Donald Trump’s argument that the world has become unhinged under President Biden?

Even “better”, that complete anarchy in Haiti could force Biden’s hand, compelling him to order a U.S. military intervention that could benefit Trump enormously in November?

I understand the political logic. I was President George W. Bush’s envoy to Haiti during a similar meltdown 20 years ago which also took place against the backdrop of a U.S. presidential election. The administration’s decision to intervene was intended at least in part to prevent spillover in Florida that could have tipped the state to the Democrats in 2004.

Today, the tables are turned in more ways than one – Democrats control the White House, but they hope to stabilize Haiti without a U.S. intervention that could prove deeply unpopular.

If Republicans are indeed cynically blocking funding for the MSS in order to advance partisan interests, it could boomerang on them in November. The fact is that they will own the consequences if the Kenyans cannot be deployed or sustained. Their fingerprints would be allover whatever ensues – potentially including a criminal takeover of the Haitian state, a mass migration toward the U.S., and ultimately a U.S. military intervention. This would be on top of the responsibility they already bear for the current crisis due to the decision by the Trump administration to support the complete withdrawal of the UN peacekeeping mission from Haiti, which accelerated the country’s descent into chaos.

History teaches that dysfunctional governance makes Haiti an inescapable security challenge for the U.S. But has dysfunction in Washington reached the point that we cannot agree even to support and enable others to shoulder our security burden in our own backyard? Woe to the political party that sabotages such a deal for America and is complicit with the spread of Haiti’s disorders to our shores.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Reps. Maria Elvira Salazar and Mario Diaz-Balart – the floor is yours.

James B. Foley is a former career diplomat who served as U.S. Ambassador to Haiti and to Croatia.