Where is Haiti? Scotland, having been drawn against them in the World Cup, will not be travelling to the island to meet its international football squad.
Why? For one thing, it is far too dangerous a place to take a football team or assemble a crowd of spectators in a stadium.
In the 60 years I have worked as a journalist, I have written very little about Haiti apart from appeals for Mary’s Meals in the aftermath of earthquakes – and one murder story about a Dumbarton-born man who was found shot dead in the back of a car in Port-au-Prince.
Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Nearly two-thirds of the population lives below the poverty line, and some 5.7 million people—almost half the population—are facing acute hunger.
Compounding Haiti’s economic situation is its heavy dependence on external revenue, primarily from foreign aid and remittances sent by the diaspora, the exiles who left to find a better, safer life.
Between 2010 and 2020, the United Nations allocated more than $13 billion in international aid for Haiti, primarily for disaster-relief missions and development programs. Meanwhile, Haitian remittances have steadily risen over the past two decades, totaling $3.9 billion in 2024 (15.5 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, or GDP) as the island continues to face multiple crises.
Beyond remittances and aid, trade has also shaped Haiti’s economy, averaging around 40 percent of total GDP since 2010. However, the country faces a substantial and persistent trade deficit because its imports significantly outweigh its exports, with the deficit reaching more than 15 percent of GDP in 2024. The country’s leading industries include agriculture and apparel manufacturing, with the United States serving as Haiti’s top export partner, followed by Canada and Mexico, both of which have already participated successfully in this 23026 World Cup.
Today, Haiti remains heavily in debt. While international lenders canceled Haiti’s debt following its massive 2010 earthquake, additional loans, corruption, and mismanagement of aid caused public debt to rise in the ensuing years. Haiti’s general government gross debt in 2025 is forecast to equal roughly 12 percent of its GDP, according to the International Monetary Fund. Further upheaval, including the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, back-to-back natural disasters in July and August 2021, and rampant gang violence, has placed additional strain on the country’s economy.
Energy shortages, humanitarian aid cuts, and a depreciation of the gourde—Haiti’s currency—have further compounded the crisis. Tourism, once a vibrant sector, has declined. Compared to a record 1.3 million tourists in 2018, which drew in $620 million, Haiti welcomed only 148,000 travelers in 2021, generating around $80 million in profits. That same year, the neighboring Dominican Republic welcomed five million tourists.
Scots can send aid to Mary’s Meals, Dalmally, Argyll and Bute
Haiti’s Troubled Path to Development
- Once the wealthiest colony in the Americas, Haiti is now the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country, with nearly two-thirds of the population living below the poverty line.
- Foreign intervention, political instability, and natural disasters have stymied development efforts in Haiti. Recently, armed gangs have sought to fill the country’s political vacuum by taking control of large swaths of territory.
- In September 2025, the UN Security Council adopted a U.S.- and Panama-drafted resolution authorizing a new security force in Haiti to help combat surging gang violence.
Few countries have struggled with development as much as Haiti. Since breaking free from French colonial rule more than two centuries ago, the Caribbean state has weathered multiple foreign interventions, chronic political instability, social unrest, and devastating natural disasters. The confluence of these forces has transformed what was once the wealthiest colony in the Americas into the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.
The United States has had a long and troubled history with Haiti, including a nearly twenty-year and at times, bloody occupation in the early twentieth century. Nevertheless, the two countries maintain close economic and social ties, with U.S. policy often aiming to bring political and economic stability to Haiti. However, bilateral relations have grown increasingly strained in recent years.
Since returning to office in early 2025, President Donald Trump has sought to end deportation protections for Haitians, particularly by terminating the country’s temporary protected status designation. At the same time, his administration has focused on bolstering security in the country through diplomatic initiatives at the United Nations.
What are Haiti’s origins?
Spanish settlers arrived on the island of Hispaniola, which comprises modern-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic, in 1492. Within a quarter-century, diseases brought by Europeans, such as smallpox and measles, decimated the Indigenous Taíno population. Over the next three centuries, European colonizers imported hundreds of thousands of enslaved people from western and central Africa to harvest sugar, coffee, and timber—all lucrative exports.
In the early 1600s, French traders established an outpost on the western third of the island, which Paris annexed as the colony of Saint-Domingue several decades later. In the late 1700s, Toussaint L’Ouverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines, both formerly enslaved, led a rebellion against French rule that culminated in the creation of Haiti in 1804. The first postcolonial Black republic, Haiti, became a beacon of abolition, self-determination, and racial equality.
