Overview:
Initially printed by Index on Censorship, this report investigates how USAID funding cuts underneath Donald Trump’s administration have weakened Haiti’s media, LGBTQ+ and well being providers sectors—leaving civil society unvoiced amid gang violence, poverty and political instability.
By Gabriella Jóźwiak | Index on Censorship
Editorial Be aware: This text was first published by Index on Censorship on 28 July 2025. It appeared in Quantity 54, Problem 2 of Index on Censorship’s print journal, titled: Land of the Free?: Trump’s warfare on speech at dwelling and overseas. Learn extra concerning the concern here.
Their assailants had been armed with machetes, firearms and sticks. The group of 10 Haitian journalists didn’t stand an opportunity.
“Their tools – cameras, recorders, telephones, helmets and bullet-proof vests – had been taken by their attackers, lowering their capacity to doc occasions,” reported on-line Haitian information service Réalité Information.
This assault on the media was one in all three which befell inside every week in March 2025 within the nation’s capital Port-au-Prince, in accordance with the Committee to Defend Journalists (CPJ).
Haiti-based UNESCO consultant Eric Voli Bi warned that gangs, which management an estimated 85% of the town, had a technique to silence journalists and “forestall Haitians from getting details about the scenario in a clear method”.
The harmful reporting local weather in Haiti is why the US Company for Worldwide Growth (USAID) previously invested in programmes to guard press freedom within the nation.
Since US President Donald Trump’s administration started dismantling the division the identical month the Port-au-Prince assaults occurred, Haitian group media’s capacity to talk out about injustices has been impaired. However this isn’t the one destructive consequence.
USAID accounted for a fifth of Haiti’s complete help revenue, in accordance with the suppose tank the Middle for World Growth. Final 12 months the company dedicated greater than $165 million in humanitarian help to the nation, the place greater than one million persons are internally displaced and reside in dire situations.
The withdrawal of that funding has broken grassroots organisations’ freedom of speech, together with these representing folks with HIV and AIDS, and rape victims.
Different cuts are additionally having dire penalties for freedom of expression. Near $800,000 a 12 months of USAID cash used to go to group or regional radio stations in Haiti’s provinces, in accordance with Fritznel Octave, Haiti editor of the Haitian Occasions newspaper. This cash went in direction of safety help in numerous varieties, together with paying for secure workspaces and offering safety coaching.
Haiti has greater than 700 radio and TV stations, and radio is essentially the most broadly adopted medium within the nation, in accordance with Reporters With out Borders (RSF). Octave says many stations battle to outlive as they lack funding and promoting income is at the moment low. They depend on USAID funding and the withdrawal has left a big hole. “They now function with a skeleton newsroom, the place they could possibly be airing simply non secular or spiritual content material, or one thing very insignificant, to assist them maintain their operations,” he mentioned.
Octave, who has lined Haiti for greater than 25 years, added that, along with USAID cuts, Trump is legitimising media repression by way of different actions. “It has at all times been a battle for freedom of expression in Haiti,” mentioned Octave, referring to power media underfunding, lack of regulation, political intimidation, and restricted freedom of motion imposed by gangs.
“However when you’ve got Trump in energy, versus Biden, Trump at all times has this harmful narrative,” he mentioned. “Haiti is a rustic that has at all times been choosing up narrative or functioning based mostly on US-dictated insurance policies. So any narrative within the USA is principally unfold over Haiti.” He provided the instance of Trump referring to the media because the “enemy of the folks,” which may give the Haitian authorities justification to revoke a journalist’s media accreditation in the event that they select. Since final 12 months, Haiti has fallen from place 93 in RSF’s World Press Freedom Index to 111.
One of many areas of assist most critically hit by the USAID cuts is the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Aid (PEPFAR). In Haiti, PEPFAR-supported remedy amenities served 80% of sufferers at excessive threat of HIV, providing them PReP remedy which helps forestall an infection.
At this time, providers have been utterly halted, besides these for pregnant and lactating ladies. A month-to-month rise of 30% to 50% of latest HIV circumstances is anticipated on account of the closure of all prevention and communication actions, in accordance with the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).
In Croix-des-Bouquets, about 13km exterior Port-au-Prince, Dominique Saint-Vil all of a sudden has loads of time on his palms. He’s the manager director of the Organisation Trans d’Haiti (OTRAH), an NGO devoted to the inclusion of transgender folks within the nation. “We’ve shut down every thing,” he mentioned.
OTRAH obtained cash from PEPFAR to ship consciousness campaigns to younger folks about HIV and AIDS and coaching for native well being teams on offering healthcare to transgender and HIV-positive folks, amongst different providers.
Saint-Vil says grassroots organisations should not talking up concerning the damaging impression of the USAID cuts, as a result of they’ve little affect over funding selections, but additionally as a result of they worry what may occur to them. “Protesting is a harmful option to do issues,” he mentioned. “We’re scared for our lives.”
In Might, Haitian protesters held placards exterior central authority places of work demanding the resumption of HIV drug distribution. Nevertheless, solely about 12 folks took half, in accordance with the Haitian Occasions. Saint-Vil mentioned such demonstrations are sometimes organised spontaneously so gangs are much less prone to hear about them prematurely. Within the first quarter of 2025, greater than 1,600 folks had been killed in Haiti and not less than 161 kidnapped, in accordance with UN figures.
Trump’s govt order aimed toward curbing gender transition for younger folks within the USA has bolstered discriminatory attitudes in Haiti, Saint-Vil added. That is one more reason why his organisation has in the reduction of awareness-raising group actions.
“There was loads of hate speech, loads of transphobia and homophobia, earlier than. However that has actually affected the scenario right here,” he mentioned. “Earlier than folks had been extra cautious with what they had been saying, however now they freely goal transgender folks on-line and in actual life.”
This has compelled trans folks to remain indoors and solely exit in teams to locations they know they’re accepted. Due to Trump, Saint-Vil says folks “really feel like they’ve permission to do no matter they need” to minority teams.
Nègès Mawon is a Haitian NGO advocating for ladies in Haiti, specifically victims of rape and gender-based violence. Within the first three months of 2025, the UN recognized greater than 333 survivors of sexual violence. The bulk had been rape victims they usually had usually been subjected to gang-rape.
Co-founder and basic coordinator Pascale Solages mentioned the USAID funding cuts compelled her organisation to reduce a nationwide undertaking to encourage ladies’s participation in politics, forward of the nation’s scheduled presidential election in November.
A Transitional Presidential Council (TPC) has ruled Haiti since final 12 months, put in place after a surge in violence. The final democratically elected president of Haiti, Jovenel Moïse, was assassinated in July 2021.
“It was vital for us to work with ladies in every kind of communities to assist them perceive the impression of elections and their participation as residents,” mentioned Solages.
Ladies in Haiti are actively engaged in advocacy work, however the TPC is “doing nothing” to assist ladies and women, she added. Not one of many TPC’s seven voting members is feminine.
The flexibility of Haitians to boost their wants at US state division degree has worsened underneath the Trump administration, Solages mentioned. In 2022, President Biden launched a ten-year plan to stop battle and promote stability in Haiti. Conversely, Trump publicly referred to Haiti as a “shithole” throughout his first time period as president in January 2018. He later denied making this remark, posting on X (previously Twitter): “By no means mentioned something derogatory about Haitians aside from Haiti is, clearly, a really poor and troubled nation.”
“We’ve much less allies within the USA,” mentioned Solages. “It’s harder now to be in areas the place we are able to affect and the place we could be within the dialog about what’s occurring.”
Growing poverty in Haiti is one other impediment stopping Haitians from expressing themselves, in accordance with human rights activist Nixon Boumba.
Over half the inhabitants – 5.7 million folks – are experiencing excessive ranges of meals insecurity. Boumba believes the USA and the worldwide group are failing to deal with the safety points and due to this fact contributing to the deteriorating humanitarian scenario. “We’ve a proper to talk, however we don’t have the capability to do this, due to the scenario we live in,” he mentioned.
“Individuals are disconnected from human rights, or coverage, as a result of they should take care of big and laborious challenges to outlive. We are able to’t communicate as a result of we have now to struggle to outlive.”
Boumba added that it’s unattainable for the deliberate presidential election to go forward. “The principle precedence of Haitian folks is safety,” he mentioned. “However the authorities itself will not be in a position to go to the [presidential] palace or transfer across the nation.” There are additionally considerations that gangs would management voters and affect the result, rendering the entire course of undemocratic.
Trump’s condemnation of Haitian immigrants within the USA is the starkest instance of how his administration has condemned the nation. One of the vital publicised quotes from his 2024 election marketing campaign was the declare Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio had been consuming pet cats and canines.
Since Trump got here to energy, he has revoked a authorized momentary safety standing for greater than 500,000 Haitian, Venezuelan, Cuban and Nicaraguan migrants who fled harmful situations of their homelands for the USA. They now face potential imminent deportation.
Emmanuela Douyon, head of particular initiatives and advocacy at Policité, a Haiti-based suppose tank targeted on financial improvement, says worry of being thrown out of the USA has pushed Haitian migrants like herself underground. Doyon fled Haiti to the USA in 2021 after receiving demise threats. However now she watches her phrases and avoids all contact with American authorities.
“It’s the primary time in a few years I’m afraid one thing I say may need penalties on my freedom,” she mentioned.
“I’ve at all times been cautious about commenting on US international coverage right here due to my standing as an asylum seeker, however now I’m making an attempt to not be [present] the place protests are occurring. As a result of I’m Black, I’ll be simply focused.” Doyon added that even when she was a sufferer of crime, she wouldn’t name the police in case they started probing her immigration standing.
Worry of criticising the USA runs deep by way of Haitian society, in accordance with Yvel Admettre, secretary basic of the Confederation of Public and Non-public Sector Staff (CTSP) commerce union. “Even when they take actions towards us in our personal houses, everyone seems to be afraid to talk [against them], even politicians and leaders,” he mentioned.
One motive for that is folks don’t need to threat being denied visas to enter the USA, Admettre recommended. However one other is the monetary management the USA holds over the nation. NGOs could also be afraid to criticise the choice to chop USAID funding, in case that negates any probability of receiving funding once more ought to it develop into obtainable. Haitian companies are additionally afraid the USA will destroy the commerce agreements that hold some Haitian employees in desperately wanted employment.
Not solely did Trump impose a ten% tariff on Caribbean imports on his so-called “Liberation Day” in April, however since coming into energy, he has did not renew two commerce programmes that expire in September 2025 and which profit Haiti’s garment producers. The Haitian Hemispheric Alternative by way of Partnership Encouragement Act (HOPE) permits US imports of textiles and clothes from Haiti to be duty-free.
The Haiti Financial Elevate Program (HELP) Act additional expands duty-free standing for Haitians exports. With out them, tens of hundreds of garment employees may lose their jobs, plunging much more Haitians into poverty and exacerbating the impression of USAID cuts.
Admettre recounts a Haitian saying: “A picket door can’t struggle with an iron door.” It means one can’t struggle with an influence that’s a lot stronger than one other. Haiti is aware of it’s the weaker facet and due to this fact doesn’t react to Trump’s damaging actions or derogatory feedback, Admettre mentioned.
“We can’t stand head-to-head with the USA, as a result of it’s the policeman of the world.”