U.S. Embassy Warns Haiti Council Against Moves Seen as Aiding Gangs

The U.S. Embassy in Haiti warned the country’s transitional presidential council that Washington will take unspecified 'appropriate measures' against any politician who backs efforts to change Haiti’s current government in ways the U.S. deems destabilizing or favorable to gangs. In a statement posted Wednesday on X, the embassy said such maneuvers would undermine attempts to restore a 'minimal level of security and stability' as Haiti faces surging gang violence and deepening poverty. The warning comes amid reported tensions between some council members and Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé, the third premier chosen by the body since it was formed with Caribbean backing in April 2024 after gangs seized the main airport and key state infrastructure. The council, an unelected authority created after the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, is nominally due to step down by Feb. 7 under a transition plan that assumed elections would already have been held, but violence has repeatedly pushed balloting back to a tentative August date with a December runoff. U.N. officials told the Security Council this week that Haitian factions remain divided over the transitional 'governance architecture,' and warned that further political maneuvering could derail already fragile plans to restore democratic institutions.