The United States is not sending soldiers on the ground in Haiti for now, a State Department spokesman told Caribbean Television Network on Thursday, March 21, in response to reports in a Dominican newspaper this week that the administration of Democratic President Joe Biden would finally be willing to deploy troops to Haiti as part of an “international solution”.
However, the head of the U.S. Southern Command, General Laura Richardson, said on Tuesday at an event of the American think-tank Atlantic Council in Washington that this possibility had not been ruled out.
“I think an international solution, which also includes the Haitian perspective, is very important. That’s why I don’t think we should go for a U.S.-only solution,” General Richardson had said, adding that President Joe Biden’s administration is trying “to do exactly that: work toward an international solution”.
The spokesman recalled that, at the request of the State Department, U.S. Southern Command had deployed a U.S. Maritime Fleet Anti-Terrorism Security Team (FAST) “to maintain robust security capabilities at the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and to conduct relief operations there”.
This State Department spokesperson also pointed out that the U.S. Department of Defense announced a week ago that it had doubled U.S. funding for the Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS), and the U.S. government continues to work with Haitian, Kenyan and other partners to accelerate the mission’s deployment to support the Haitian National Police and restore security in Haiti.
The Department of Defense is able to provide support to the MSS, including planning assistance, information sharing, airlift and medical support, SOUTHCOM had said.