The Haitian government has hired as a lobbyist an influential member of President Donald Trump’s recent campaign to regain the White House.
Carlos Trujillo, a former Republican congressman from Florida who served as Trump’s ambassador to the Organization of American States, has filed paperwork with the Department of Justice showing that his Continental Strategy firm has signed a $35,000-a-month, one-year contract with Haiti’s transition government to lobby on its behalf. The company is a full-service lobbying and consulting firm with offices in Washington, D.C.; Miami; Tallahassee; Jacksonville; and Buenos Aires.
According to the filing, the firm “will represent the Republic of Haiti as part of a comprehensive program to: (1) support recovery efforts and enhance Haiti’s profile in the United States; (2) increase U.S. trade and investment; and (3) help the government address financial sector improvements and other necessary steps. Activities may involve lobbying, preparing and disseminating informational materials, and engaging with U.S. policymakers.”
The contract was signed by Prime Minister Alix-Dider Fils-Aimé on Feb. 7, and filed by Trujillo on Feb. 24 — the same day that Haiti was among 18 countries to side with the U.S. and Russia in voting against a European-backed nonbinding resolution at the United Nations condemning Russia as the aggressor in the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Trujillo also registered his company that day as a lobbyist for Guyana, the oil-rich English-speaking South American country and CARICOM member state whose ongoing territorial disputes with Venezuela forced it over the weekend to reach out to its international allies, including the U.S. The Continental Strategy deal was signed by Guyana’s Foreign Ministry and is for $50,000 a month for six months, according to the filing.
Ahead of the filing, Guyana’s former president and current vice president, Bharrat Jagdeo, announced that the foreign ministry was finalizing negotiations with a U.S. lobbying firm. Soon after, he provided some context for why the country was trying to hire lobbyists.
“Clearly, we have to remain engaged with the U.S. government in ensuring that there is, for the Caribbean countries particularly, a favorable environment for our trade with the U.S. You know, we’ve had some special treatment with the U.S. for a long time and we hope that those don’t get eroded,” Jagedo said in a press briefing.
But while Guyana’s government has provided some idea of what it hoping to get from its lobbyists, the Haitian government has not. Neither the prime minister’s office nor the Transitional Presidential Council has announced the hiring of Trujillo’s firm or what they are looking for under the new Trump administration as it cuts foreign aid worldwide, threaten mass deportations from the U.S. and offers no guarantees that U.S. funding to the Kenya-led Security Support mission will continue after September, when the force comes up for renewal before the U.S. Security Council.
“I am not against the question of hiring lobbyists — I know how the United States works,” said Sauveur Pierre Étienne, a former presidential candidate and coordinator of the Organization of People in Struggle political party. “But the problem we have in Haiti is that those in charge do not exercise their responsibilities.”
Étienne, who has been critical of the country’s current governance and recent spending sprees, said the government needs to clarify what it is seeking from the lobbying firm.
“If I am engaging a lobbyist, I need to know how we are going to engage, not only for the U.S. to lift the embargo on weapons for Haiti’s security forces so they can have the necessary equipment to fight the gangs, but how we are going to have a reconciliation with the United States for them to deploy military to help me form my army and professionalize my police because my biggest problem is security,” he said. “That’s the first thing a lobbyist needs to tell me he can resolve.”
Absent these directives, Étienne said, Haitian authorities are just pushing their own agenda.
Julio Volcy, a pastor and member of Haiti’s civil society, said he also sees the value in hiring lobbyists given the country’s challenges. But any deal to hire a lobbying firm by the current transitional government “should be questioned and possibly revoked, given that there have been no real improvements for Haitians at home or abroad,” he said.
“Signs of internal conflict show they can’t be trusted to lead the country in the right direction,” Volcy said. “Their focus seems to be on gaining political and personal power rather than addressing Haiti’s urgent needs. Right now, elections and a referendum seem unlikely.”
The prime minister’s office did not respond to a Miami Herald inquiry for clarity on the objectives of the lobbying effort. But a source familiar with the contract said that Trujillo, who as OAS ambassador led a 2019 fact-finding visit to Haiti as the opposition sought to remove President Jovenel Moïse, will be dealing strictly with Fils-Aimé, the prime minister. The primary objective, the source said, is to lobby the U.S.. government to reengage with Haiti so that the Caribbean nation can create a secure environment for elections.
Haiti turmoil continues
Haiti’s political transition was formed a year ago this month after then-U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken flew down to Jamaica as powerful gangs united and laid siege to Port-au-Prince, forcing the then prime minister’s resignation. The hope was that a transition made up of a disparate group of political rivals would help restore security and reestablish democratic order. However, neither has happened.
The nine-member Transitional Presidential Council, now on its second prime minister and facing an open conflict within the command structure of the police, has been paralyzed by infighting and corruption allegations that have empowered gangs that have forced tens of thousands of additional Haitians to flee their homes.
On Friday, the transitional council will welcome its third president, former Central Bank Governor Fritz Alphonse Jean, as part of its rotating presidency. Jean, who is taking the reins from Leslie Voltaire, inherits not only a far worse security situation but even more uncertainty.
With more than a million Haitians now internally displaced, and Port-au-Prince increasingly under siege, gangs are poised to shut off the final major road out of the capital after promises to reopen at least one major road never materialized and as gangs continue to occupy the community of Kenscoff and its surrounding areas in the hills above Port-au-Prince.
The deteriorating security landscape not only means elections are less likely to happen by November but also that the transition won’t be able to put a new president in office on Feb. 7., 2026. This means decisions will have to be made about whether to extend the life of the transition or disband it, as some critics have been demanding.
So far, the Trump administration has not publicly weighed in on either possibility. Neither have council members, who have not taken a public stance on recent decisions by the U.S. that will adversely affect Haiti and its citizens.
These include the rollback of temporary legal protections for more than 500,000 Haitians living in the U.S. and the gutting of tens of millions of dollars in foreign assistance to aid groups in country.
