U.S. aid freeze impacts Haiti security mission
Feb. 5, 2025
The U.S. Trump administration’s 90-day halt of foreign assistance has frozen a $15 million contribution to the United Nations-controlled Trust Fund for the Kenya-led Multinational Security Support mission in Haiti. The development comes as the Viv Ansanm gang coalition threatens to take over the last parts of Port-au-Prince that remain outside of criminal control, reports the Miami Herald.
The U.S. has been the biggest contributor to the mission led by Kenyan police, which was launched last year and is struggling with a lack of funding and personnel. The change in funding will have an “immediate impact,” U.N. spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said yesterday. The United States had committed $15 million to the trust fund that helps finance the multinational force in Haiti, Dujarric said. With $1.7 million of that already spent, “$13.3 million is now frozen,” he said. (Associated Press)
U.S. President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio Rubio haven’t said if the U.S. intends to maintain its financial support, or if they will support a proposal by the previous administration to convert the current mission into a formal U.N. peacekeeping force. “Just what the U.S. policy toward Haiti and its growing instability will be is expected to be the lead discussion item when Rubio meets with Dominican authorities, including President Luis Abinader,” today, according to the Miami Herald.
Sheinbaum’s diplomatic victory
Hundreds of Mexican soldiers were mobilized yesterday to the country’s border with the United States as part of an eleventh hour agreement that halted U.S. tariffs on Mexican imports in exchange for Mexico ramping up a crackdown on fentanyl trafficking. (Reuters)
For many regional observers, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s tariff negotiations with Trump are a model for how to deal with the capricious U.S. leader, particularly compared to Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s more confrontational effort to block deportations carried out by the U.S. military, last week. The deployment of 10,000 troops to the U.S. border is an extension of the security strategy Mexico already has in place, reports the Washington Post.
The New York Times compares Sheinbaum’s approach to that of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, emphasizing her “choice to focus on partnership in her talks with Mr. Trump and not reach for a swift retaliation.”
Trudeau and Sheinbaum discussed their approaches in a phone conversation over the weekend, after the U.S. announced tariffs against both their countries, reports the New York Times.
More Regional Relations
The diplomatic kerfuffle between Trump and Petro is unlikely to be the last, argues Cynthia Arnson in World Politics Review. “The next likely flashpoint is over counternarcotics, the issue that launched the 1999 bipartisan assistance plan known as Plan Colombia.”
Trump welcomed El Salvador’s offer to become a U.S. penal colony, though legal experts say deporting U.S. citizens is likely illegal and would certainly be challenged in court. Nonetheless, President Nayib Bukele’s offer shows “how far he is willing to go to define himself as Mr. Trump’s primary ally in a region that the American president has disparaged,” notes the New York Times.
It is also unclear whether the U.S. can legally deport convicted criminals of other nationalities, reports the New York Times separately.
The first US military flight deporting migrants from the United States to Guantanamo Bay landed in Cuba on yesterday evening, according to a US official. (AFP)
Mexico will not allow the United States to send Mexican migrants to Guantanamo Bay and prefers to receive them directly instead, Mexico's foreign minister said yesterday. (Reuters)
“While purchasing territory from another country would be an unusual move for a modern U.S. president, much of America’s states and territories today came through purchase or expansion,” reports the Washington Post.
U.S. Democrat lawmakers are proposing a bill that would fight illegal arms traffic to Mexico, a key Sheinbaum demand in negotiations with the U.S. (La Jornada)
Colombia
Colombia’s first-ever televised cabinet meeting, last night descended into acrimony as ministers traded barbs and aired personal grievances. Vice President Francia Márquez said newly-named Foreign Minister Laura Sarabia had treated her with disrespect and criticized the appointment of scandal-plagued Armando Benedetti as chief of staff, reports Bloomberg. She also criticized alleged cases of graft in the Petro administration.
The tensions within the cabinet are unsustainable, said Interior Minister Juan Fernando Cristo, today, who called on all ministers to resign. (La Silla Vacía)
During the meeting, Petro said “cocaine is not worse than whisky” saying it’s illegal because it is made in Latin America. (Infobae)
Petro ordered the state-run oil company Ecopetrol to cancel a joint venture with a U.S.-owned company that was expected to produce around 90,000 barrels of oil per day, citing environmental concerns. (Associated Press)
Violence in Colombia’s Catatumbo region “has revealed the fragility of the truces between armed groups in many parts of Colombia. But it also underscores a deeper struggle to fully implement the country’s 2016 peace accords, a process the United States has supported with hundreds of millions of dollars in aid,” according to the Washington Post.
Venezuela
María Corina Machado said she met with Trump’s presidential special envoy Richard Grenell on his visit to Caracas last Friday. (El País)
Regional
The Guardian analyzes the Caribbean push for decolonization, and whether it is part of “the birth of a Caribbean-wide consciousness.”