Washington’s top diplomat in Port-au-Prince told a Senate appropriations panel on Tuesday that security and stability are the cornerstones of the Trump administration’s policy toward Haiti, where some 20 armed groups are holding the country hostage.

Henry Wooster, the U.S. chargé d’affaires, said that while 12,000 armed people account for gang membership, about 3,000 “pose the greatest threat.” By contrast, the Haiti National Police has approximately 6,000 personnel on the books, of whom 400 or less do most of the fighting, he said.

“Haiti’s problems are grave, but progress is achievable,” Wooster told senators as he laid out the administration’s strategy at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on U.S. aid to Haiti.

The hearing was the first on Haiti since Congress passed the Foreign Operations Appropriations bill for fiscal year 2026, directing funding for development and security assistance to the crisis-wrecked country. The legislation provides up to $5 million in nonlethal assistance for the struggling Haitian armed forces — the first congressional funding for the military since it was disbanded in the 1990s — and includes support for United Nations operations. Lawmakers also renewed the HOPE/HELP duty-free trade preference program, though only for one year. The legislation, which expired last year, has supported tens of thousands of jobs in the garment sector.

Ahead of the bill’s passage, Florida U.S. Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart told the Miami Herald that while the spending bill included reductions, he’s proud to have advanced funding for Haiti.

“That bill does a lot of, a lot of really good things,” said Díaz-Balart, adding that as chairman of the House subcommittee responsible for funding U.S. foreign policy and national security priorities, it was important for him to give Secretary of State Marco Rubio “the tools to deal with as much as possible, like the worsening situation in Haiti.”

Restoring security top priority

Security is paramount for Haiti’s stability, Wooster told senators. But he also stressed that the “gains will be fleeting without improved economic conditions to sustain Haitian society and economic and security.” Labor Department statistics indicate that 34% of Haitian children are forced to work, some of them with gangs, he said.

“Guns and the police or any of these other folks won’t win it at the end of the day.... We must have an economy in place,” he said. “There must be at least subsistence, and people will have to believe that they can, in fact, put shoes on the baby’s feet and food on the table and something over their head. If they don’t believe that that is attainable and possible, we’re back to square one, whether people decide to get in boats or go to gangs.”

Wooster detailed U.S. efforts to counter what he called Haiti’s “major destabilizers,” including support for a U.N.-authorized coalition of foreign military and police known as the Gang Suppression Force. Fifteen countries have pledged over 11,000 personnel, and last week a group of partners led by the U.S. approved the slate of 5,500 personnel, he said. The first troops are expected to arrive on April 1, with full operational capability projected by September. The force will support, but not replace, the Haitian national police.

“The Gang Suppression Force will work from day one to put itself out of business as Haiti builds its own security and the state reasserts authority thanks to funds appropriated by Congress,” Wooster said.

The diplomat testified alongside Austin Holmes, a Florida resident and security firm owner who coordinates humanitarian and security assistance in the Caribbean country. The hearing was chaired by Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma.

“The Achilles’ heel in Haiti remains the actions and orientation of the political elite in Haiti, rampant corruption and a need for scheduled... national elections, a challenging task for Haiti under any circumstances, even more so during what could be called an insurgency,” Mullin said.

Two different visions

While Wooster focused on the administration’s diplomatic approach, Holmes argued for significantly greater investment in Haiti’s security apparatus, with Haitians in the lead.

“I think what’s important here for all of us is that Haitians are seen leading their security initiative,” he said. “If we are left here without a 35- to 50,000 man force in the country, I don’t believe there’s any hope of sustained security in Haiti. We have the last four years that point to that. And so what we’re proposing is a dual framework, in addition to the Gang Suppression Force, to augment train and to leave behind Haitian security forces that can sustain in a durable manner.”

Holmes also promoted a public-private partnership for humanitarian aid delivery that he said would be more cost-effective and adaptable than existing aid structures, and subject to measurable outcomes and congressional oversight.

With armed gangs controlling up to 90% of the capital, he said, Haiti is facing systematic collapse. As an example of the crisis, Holmes told lawmakers that sexual violence has gotten so out of hand that, “more recently, we’ve seen gangs using something called ‘community rapes’, where, in an effort to terrorize entire communities, they’ll systematically rape every female in that community. In October, we saw 42 murdered as part of that, many former staff members for my team.”

Returning Haitians

Unaddressed at the hearing was whether the country can absorb the return of more than 300,000 Haitians who currently hold Temporary Protected Status in the U.S. and could face deportation if a stay on the termination of their protection is overturned in court.

“The U.S. objective in Haiti is one word, stability,” Wooster said in his opening remarks. “We define that as A, no collapse of the state; and B, no mass illegal migration onto us shores. Everything we do to implement the President’s Haiti policy is anchored to that singular objective.”

Successive transitions

Haiti has now gone 10 years without an election, and nearly five years in a succession of transitions following the July 7, 2021, assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. On Saturday, the turbulent tenure of a nine-member presidential council ended a nearly 22-month mandate without achieving its main objective: turning power over to an elected government.

The country’s sole leader is now Prime Minister Alix Dider Fils-Aimé. In written testimony to the committee, Wooster said Fils-Aimé and Laurent Saint-Cyr, the council’s last chairman, “withstood death threats, blackmail and numerous attempts by corrupt officials to oust them.”

Both men “have been indispensable partners in advancing our shared interests to prevent state collapse,” Wooster added. “Under Saint-Cyr’s leadership, the council approved a decree setting elections for 2026. Our policy objective of stability will set conditions to help Haiti have an elected government.”

Democratic lawmakers on the panel were concerned about the effects of U.S. aid cuts, particularly at the U.S. Agency for International Development, which funded the majority of Haiti’s health care. Wooster said the United States “remains the number donor and assistance provider.”

Concerns over weaponized drones

Though members of the committee appeared to be unfamiliar with the workings of the incoming Gang Suppression Force, there was one issue of concern: The role of former Blackwater founder Erik Prince and his Vectus Global security firm in Haiti. Though the private military firm has been credited with helping security forces get into neighborhoods and recently blew up the home of one of the country’s most notorious warlords, the presence of mercenaries operating in Haiti continues to make some lawmakers uneasy.

”We have been pretty careful about having American private military contractors in conflict zones, American mercenaries,” said Democratic Sen. Christopher Murphy, who described Prince as a Trump ally.

Murphy pressed Wooster about the role of the firm, and whether there are other private military companies being contracted by the Haitian police force or by the Haitian government. Wooster said the contract is between the government of Haiti and the firm, and not the U.S.

“The revenues being used to pay for it are Haitian revenues. The point is, this is a decision the Haitian government made,” he said.

Wooster did make the point that the company’s so-called Kamikaze explosive drones have been providing comparative advantages in the fight, primarily the ability to fight at night.

“We have full-scale urban warfare going on. And so what the [private military contractors] have been doing is bringing in people who have experience in precisely that element, which is urban combat operations,” he said.

Murphy was unconvinced. Reports indicate that “an American company operating drone strikes inside of Haiti has killed 559 people and 11 children,” he said.

“We’ve been very careful about introducing American forces into Haiti because of the blowback that it has had against America’s reputation and our interests in the region,” the lawmaker said. “But this is an American company that is killing hundreds of people.”

After Murphy raised Blackwater’s controversial history in Iraq, where its contractors killed 17 Iraqi civilians and were later pardoned by President Trump in 2020, Wooster said it was not his role to indict Prince or any of his various companies. But he offered a counterpoint, given that armed groups last year raped and killed thousands while controlling every major highway in and out of the capital.

“Can you imagine how the situation with regard to security and stability would be different if we didn’t have people with experience contributing to this fight on behalf of the Haitian government?” Wooster said. “I can assure you ...the whole situation, and one mentioned by several of your colleagues here, state collapse, we would be much closer to that nasty precipice than we are at the moment.”

Wooster said he doesn’t carry “a torch” for Prince, the former U.S. Army officer who has served in some of the world’s toughest conflict zones said.

“But I have to offer you my best professional counsel, which is precisely that” without Prince’s company, he added, “we would be in a situation that is much worse than we’re in at the moment.”

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