The United States Votes to Establish a Haiti Gang Suppression Force: Now What

Critical Questions by Georges A. Fauriol and Mary Speck

Published October 8, 2025

The UN Security Council has approved deployment of a more muscular international security mission to Haiti with a mandate to "neutralize" the criminal groups that have long terrorized the country. The September 30 resolution, cosponsored by the United States and Panama, would create a new Gang Suppression Force (GSF) with as many as 5,500 members and empowered to target the gangs proactively.

On paper, the GSF represents a major escalation of international efforts to combat the gangs that not only control most of the capital, Port-au-Prince, but are also extending their reach into the rest of the country. It replaces the Kenya-led Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS) established two years ago to support and train the Haitian National Police (HNP). The new force would be up to five times bigger, largely military, and authorized to undertake "intelligence-led" missions with or without their Haitian counterparts.

In reality, the new mission still needs to overcome the funding and personnel shortfalls that plagued the MSS. To accomplish this, it must secure multilateral support in a region suffering from high levels of insecurity and poverty combined with low rates of economic growth.

Q1: Why did the Kenya-led "Multilateral Security Support" mission fail?

A1: The MSS suffered at least four fatal flaws:

1. Funding Shortfalls: The MSS depended on voluntary contributions from member states to meet its estimated annual cost of $600 million. As of May 2024, the UN-administered MSS trust fund had collected only $113 million, largely from Canada. That meant that the MSS relied on the U.S. government and its unpredictable budgetary politics. The Biden administration pledged at least $380 million to the MSS, including foreign assistance and Department of Defense support. Although the Trump administration paused foreign assistance in early 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a waiver to release $40 million in security assistance. Congress, however, did not appropriate any foreign assistance to support the MSS in either FY 2024 or FY 2025.
2. Lack of Personnel: The MSS was supposed to reach 2,500 but never exceeded 1,000. Kenya supplied some 800 police officers, mostly from paramilitary units trained to counter terrorism and civil unrest, plus small contingents from Central America and the Caribbean. But the MSS was insufficient to address the somewhat muddled objectives outlined in the 2023 UN resolution that created it, namely to "support" the Haitian police, through training and assistance in the "planning and conduct" of joint security operations. Although the Kenya-led mission notched up some positive results-such as reopening the police academy and securing the airport-it had neither the mandate nor the strength to dismantle gang networks.
3. Inadequate Police Support: The MSS could only assist Haitian security forces, who were themselves short-staffed and underfunded. Although the HNP added more than 700 recruits in early 2025, its overall numbers have declined from more than 15,000 in 2021 to fewer than 13,000 in 2024, less than half the size needed for a country of 11 million people. Outnumbered and outgunned, the police have suffered gruesome killings at the hands of gang members, including at least 33 fatalities between June 2024 and June 2024. Many police officers live with their families in gang-dominated neighborhoods, rendering the force vulnerable to intimidation and collusion.
4. Political Dysfunction: Disputes within Haiti's transitional government made it even harder for the MSS to gain traction. A Transitional Presidential Council (TPC) has ruled the country since the forced resignation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry in February 2024. Riven by political disputes, the council has failed to develop a coherent strategy to achieve its stated priorities: restoring national security, reforming the constitution, and holding credible elections.
   

Q2: What makes the new "Gang Suppression Force" different from the previous mission?

A2: The new mission's name clarifies its objectives: It will be empowered not just to support and train the HNP but also to "neutralize, isolate and deter gangs" independently. The UN resolution also instructs the GSF to combat the illicit arms trafficking that has supplied Haitian gangs with high-caliber firearms and ammunition, mostly U.S.-made, which enter the country on cargo ships or overland from the neighboring Dominican Republic. And the GSF has the potential to incorporate units from Haiti's small but well-trained military.

With this independence comes a structure that should provide for greater international oversight. The new resolution establishes a UN Support Office in Haiti to ensure strong coordination and respond "swiftly" to operational demands. A "Standing Group of Partners," including the United States, Canada, and other participating countries, will provide high-level strategic direction. It will also select candidates for two key positions: (1) a GSF special representative, who will develop strategy as well as benchmarks and metrics, and (2) a force commander, responsible for day-to-day decisionmaking. The special representative is instructed to develop rules of engagement in consultation with the force commander and the Haitian government.

These measures should build efficiency and accountability into the mission, encouraging hitherto reluctant donors to provide the GSF with personnel and a reliable funding pipeline. The most likely donors would be Haiti's neighbors in Latin America and the Caribbean or fellow French-speaking countries in Africa.

The GSF remains a UN resolution that still lacks firm international commitments to provide adequate funding, properly trained troops, and effective, accountable leadership. To ensure its success, the United States will need to muster diplomatic support in a region divided by conflicts over trade and struggling to overcome its own domestic problems, such as high crime and slow economic growth.

It is not clear which countries will contribute to the new force. Thus far, no new countries have publicly volunteered, including the leaders of Brazil and Chile, whose governments played leading roles in past UN missions to Haiti. And the U.S. government, although it spearheaded passage of the resolution and may supply both funding and logistical support, remains committed to two principles that have framed its policy toward Haiti under both the Biden and Trump administrations. Firstly, Haiti is a multinational concern, not just a U.S. responsibility. And secondly, the United States will not deploy ground forces to the country, as it did in 1994 and 2004, in the name of restoring law and order, and in 2010 to provide relief following the devastating 2010 earthquake.

Q3: What is the Haitian role in this process?

A3: Standing up the GSF and its UN Support Office will likely take six months, if not more. Meanwhile, Haitians face what may ultimately be their most difficult challenge: establishing a legitimate, democratically elected government.

The Transitional Presidential Council, which rotates the presidency and prime ministership among its nine members, emerged last year through the mediation efforts of the Caribbean Community with Washington's behind-the-scenes encouragement. But since its establishment in April 2024, the interim government's public image has deteriorated amid corruption charges and political infighting. Although scheduled to hand over power to a new government and parliament in February, the council has so far failed in its principal task: to develop a plan for the transfer of power to a legitimate, elected government.

Haitian civil society is organizing to fill the leadership vacuum left by the unpopular TPC. A coalition of universities and civil society organizations has formed the Patriotic Congress for National Rescue (Congrès Patriotique pour le Sauvetage National), which plans to hold dialogues across the country to reach consensus on political, economic, and security reforms. Any sustainable solution, they argue, must be Haitian-led.

Q4: What are the other key issues to watch through the end of 2025?

A4: On December 3-4, the neighboring Dominican Republic will host the tenth Summit of the Americas in the resort town of Punta Cana. That puts pressure on regional leaders to resolve outstanding issues on the new UN mission so they can focus on broader regional issues on the agenda, including security, food, energy, and water. Haitians are anxious to ensure their future is not the focus of discussions in the Dominican Republic, a country with which relations have long been tense. Haitians fault the Dominican government for failing to prevent contraband-including illegal weapons-from flowing across the border, even as they deploy troops there to prevent the exodus of Haitian migrants. The United Nations itself has raised concern over the Dominican Republic's deportations of vulnerable Haitians, including pregnant women, new mothers, and children. Neither country wants such sensitive bilateral issues to consume the regional summit.

Haiti was the poorest country in the Americas even before the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse sparked the latest explosion of violence. Its economy has contracted for six consecutive years, plunging even those outside the most violent areas deeper into poverty. Now the U.S. Congress has allowed the HOPE/HELP program to expire, ending the duty-free treatment of certain Haitian-made textile and apparel goods. This threatens to extinguish Haiti's largest industry, despite the United States' trade surplus with the country. Haitian diplomats and businesspeople lobbied vigorously to extend the preferences, which have enjoyed bipartisan support, but failed to move a U.S. Congress consumed by its own battles over the budget.

The loss of Haiti's trade preferences undermines the stability that the United States and its partners hoped to achieve with the new UN security mission. It could cost the country tens of thousands of jobs, especially in northern Haiti, a region that has remained largely immune to gang violence. And it will likely increase Haitian migration into the Dominican Republic, forcing that country to step up deportations just as it steps into the international spotlight for the upcoming summit.

Finally, implementation of the GSF with its overt focus on Haitian gang networks may become entangled in controversies surrounding the United States' lethal counternarcotics operations in the Caribbean, including four air strikes on alleged drug boats that have killed 21 people. The attacks could muddle Latin America's political response to joint anti-gang action in Haiti, especially amid suggestions by President Trump that the United States will start targeting drug shipments traveling by land. Only a few countries-including Colombia and Brazil-have condemned the attacks on international waters. But U.S. air strikes within Latin American territory would be more widely criticized, potentially undermining regional cooperation to combat gangs in Haiti.

Georges Fauriol is a senior associate (non-resident) with the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. Mary Speck is a former senior advisor to the Latin America Program at the United States Institute of Peace.

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