Three US warships anchored off Port-au-Prince marked the end of the last vestige of government autonomy in Haiti. On February 7, after weeks of diplomatic pressure and direct threats, the Presidential Transition Council (CPT) dissolved as demanded by Washington, consolidating the absolute power of Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé, a controversial businessman who has never been elected.
The operation began on February 1, when the USS Stockdale—a guided missile destroyer designed for multi-mission operations—arrived in the capital’s bay alongside the patrol boats USCGC Stone and USCGC Diligence. The Southern Command justified the military presence as a “firm commitment to security,” while the embassy promised a “safer and more prosperous Haiti.”
On January 23, Secretary of State Marco Rubio directly conveyed to Fils-Aimé the order to dissolve the CPT “without interference caused by internal divisions.” The message came at a critical moment: five of the seven voting members of the Council had demanded the prime minister’s resignation just two weeks earlier, accusing him of failing in his management just as the country was preparing for its first elections in a decade.
“The secretary added that the CPT must be dissolved before February 7, without corrupt actors seeking to interfere,” said State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott. The irony was not lost on anyone: Washington spoke of “corrupt actors” while defending an official accused of embezzling public funds and surrendering national sovereignty.
Rubio reaffirmed that Fils-Aimé should remain prime minister to combat “terrorist” gangs and ‘stabilize’ the country, ignoring the fact that most Haitians do not recognize him as a legitimate authority. The U.S. embassy described any attempt to change the composition of the government as a “threat to regional stability,” warning that it would take “appropriate measures.” The military flotilla reinforced the ultimatum.
Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé, a man who wields absolute power without popular legitimacy. Photo: EFE
Fils-Aimé, a communications entrepreneur and graduate of Boston University, has never won an election. His only attempt failed in 2016, when he sought a Senate seat. His first speech as the highest authority revealed his loyalties: he spoke in French during the first half, a language that only the elite speak, while the vast majority speak Creole. “He was addressing foreigners and privileged sectors, not the people,” notes a publication by Brasil de Fato.
The popular radio station Radyo Rezistans reported that the prime minister diverts $35,000 a month from the public treasury to pay lobbyists in the State Department. He also signed a 10-year contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars with the private security company of Eric Prince, former director of Blackwater.
This agreement gives foreign mercenaries control of Haitian customs and borders under the pretext of “modernization.” The documents are under review by the Superior Court of Accounts, while social organizations are demanding an end to what they consider a systematic surrender of sovereignty.
Haitian journalist Reyneld Sanon asserts that the prime minister “does not govern the country; he is a servant of the U.S. imperialist plan.” According to Sanon, Fils-Aimé, Secretary of State Mario Andresol, and Police Director Vladimir Paraison all have ties to criminal gangs and are backed by foreign embassies.
The under siege: the pattern of intervention Caribbean
The Organization of American States (OAS) legitimized the institutional coup on February 10. “Considering that the term of the Transitional Presidential Council ended on February 7, 2026, the General Secretariat recognizes that Prime Minister Didier Fils-Aimé and his cabinet will lead the interim period,” the organization stated, repeating Washington’s rhetoric without questioning the legitimacy of the process consolidated through military pressure.
The three destroyers that forced the dissolution of the Haitian transitional government are part of a pattern of militarization that Washington maintained in the Caribbean throughout 2025, under the Trump administration’s National Security Doctrine. The political and economic crisis that has plagued Haiti for decades worsened in 2021 with the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, whose murder is still under investigation. Following the assassination, then-Prime Minister Ariel Henry took office, but his lack of legitimacy led to his replacement in 2024 by the CPT. The power vacuum was exploited by criminal gangs who, in alliance with politicians and businessmen, managed to control 90 percent of the capital.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimates that more than 1.4 million people fled their homes in 2025 as a result of the violence. Haiti has not held elections since 2016. Presidential and legislative elections are scheduled for August 30, with a possible runoff on December 6. But the promise to organize elections was subordinated to the military domination scheme.
“Since U.S. troops withdrew in 1934, only in 1990 were there free and democratic elections,” explains Sanon. “Imperialism controls the electoral process and decides the results.”
In August 2025, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt confirmed the deployment of three ships with 4,000 soldiers to the region. The New York Times then revealed that Trump had secretly authorized the Pentagon to use military force against foreign drug cartels, laying the groundwork for direct military operations in foreign territories. Military movements grew: warships, intimidating flyovers, the transfer of military personnel and military arsenal to bases in Puerto Rico.
The climax of this escalation occurred in the early hours of January 2, 2026, with Operation Total Resolution, which led to the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores. It was the culmination of a long campaign of siege that Washington had been waging since Trump took office.
The new intervention force
On December 8, Fils-Aimé traveled to the United States to participate in a summit of countries that will contribute to the deployment of a Gang Repression Force (FRG) in the Caribbean nation. The meeting brought together key partners: Canada’s ambassador to the UN, David Lametti, and US Assistant Secretary of State Chris Landau.
The FRG emerges as a response to the ineffectiveness of the previous Multinational Security Support Mission (MMAS), led by Kenya, and seeks to accelerate more robust operations against criminal gangs. The Permanent Partners Group, which oversees the FRG, includes the United States, Canada, Kenya, the Bahamas, Jamaica, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Rwanda has expressed interest in sending troops, while the European Union has provided initial resources.
Leadership rests with Jack Christofides, the UN special representative appointed on December 1, and Godfrey Otunge, a Kenyan officer acting as interim commander. The FRG is a non-UN mission, but one supported by the organization, with a 12-month mandate focused on intelligence operations aimed at neutralizing, isolating, and deterring through the use of lethal force when necessary.
Echoes of the 19th century
Mexican intellectual Fernando Buen-Abad analyzes this doctrine from a critical semiotic perspective: “This document cannot be read merely as a military or diplomatic plan; it is a cognitive war or bourgeois cultural battle over the global economic and symbolic order, a new grammar of domination, a reordering of meanings around homeland, sovereignty, threat, identity, and power.”
Buen-Abad emphasizes that it is “an operation of symbolic hegemony: it redefines what is normal, desirable, legitimate; what is a threat, insecurity, decadence; what deserves protection, intervention, coercion. There is a commitment to the domestication of fear, to the militarization of the social imagination, to the naturalization of xenophobia, to the resemantization of nationalism as a shield against chaos.“ Thus, ”a new semiotics of the police state, of the fortified border, of perpetual antagonism, of closed sovereignty, of homogeneous identity is instituted. It is an unavoidable scenario for the dispute over meaning.”
Cuban analyst Raúl Capote draws historical parallels. The most severe naval blockade of the 19th century against Venezuela occurred in 1829-1830, after the dissolution of Gran Colombia. The Spanish government then equipped an expedition to reconquer territories in America. The fleet, commanded by Admiral Ángel Laborde y Navarro, set sail from Cuba to the Venezuelan coast.
“The Spanish fleet intercepted and captured numerous merchant ships, both Venezuelan and from other nations, causing serious damage to trade. Spain, isolated internationally, did not dare to sustain a costly land invasion and finally gave in,” explains Capote.
There are also parallels with the blockade imposed by European powers between 1902 and 1903, which involved the confiscation of ships. “They bombed fortifications, captured and sank Venezuelan navy ships. The British Empire, the German Empire, the Kingdom of Italy, and the United States were involved,” he notes.
Haiti’s history thus records yet another chapter of foreign intervention: a failed transitional government is replaced by a man who concentrates absolute power without popular legitimacy, backed by missile destroyers and the endorsement of regional organizations that normalize imposition through armed pressure. The same fleet that anchored off Port-au-Prince in February is the same force that laid siege to La Guaira months earlier. The same ships, the same doctrine, the same imperial script that has haunted the Caribbean like a ghost armed to the teeth since the 19th century.