The L’Ouverture Investment Plan is Back, But Subject to American Interests
Last September, I wrote an op-ed criticizing the proposed L’Ouverture Investment Plan (L.I.P.) for omitting reparations and the return of Navassa Island, and for lacking any mention of reforms to the international financial system which erodes Haiti’s monetary sovereignty. This February, in the new session of Congress, a revised bill was submitted (H.R.1114 “L’Ouverture Economic Development Plan for Haiti Act of 2025”). What changed?
This legislation gets down to the brass tacks of development administration and soft power. While my prior criticisms remain unaddressed, this iteration also advances the “Wall Street Consensus” that empowers private sector finance, minimizes public funding, and mandates returns-on-investment from Haitian businesses. These changes may make the Plan more feasible for our conservative Congress, but they risk the longevity of Haitian business and neuter the original Plan’s goals.
Reduced Timeline and Investment, Expanded Oversight
While the original L.I.P. proposed a $50 billion fund dispersed over 10 years, this revised bill cuts both the timeline and the investment amount short to $5 billion over 5 years. Whereas the first iteration laid out its target as an aspirational one, this bill defines more clearly the amount necessary to revitalize Haiti to $19.3 billion in Sec. 2(14), and authorizes, in Sec. 13, the U.S. government to appropriate only $1 billion every fiscal year between 2026 and 2031. These changes, though disappointing to some, are congruent with the new Republican administration’s foreign policy objectives of reducing American commitments and interventions abroad– most notably through the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development and in remarks decrying 'nation-building' to the U.S.-Saudi Arabia Investment Forum in Riyadh this May. The conservative, business-centric sense of the Trump White House also lays the remainder of the Plan’s funds at the feet of the private sector and other international partners, such as multilateral development banks and nations like France (Sec. 4(8-9)). These are shrewd changes, yes, but changes intended to improve the chances of the L.I.P.’s passage in a bedeviled, bellicose Congress.
The same can be said about the bill’s administrative plan for the L.I.P. The L.I.P. is organized into two components: a nonprofit administrator named the “Haitian American Enterprise Fund” (Sec. (5)) and a board of overseers named the Oversight Panel. The C.E.O. of the International Development Finance Corporation (I.D.F.C.), the private sector-focused U.S. development finance arm of the federal government, is named as the head of the Fund. The ability to appoint 9 members of the Oversight Panel from the U.S. and Haiti is divided between him and President Donald Trump (Sec. (6)). These include Haitians and Haitian-Americans living on the island. All members of the Oversight Panel are expected to “have demonstrated respect for democracy and a free-market economy”, or have led a successful business, and the Fund is required to pay back the U.S. investment to the Treasury before it closes in 2031.
The bill makes several other notable changes. Whereas the original spoke lightly of immigration (naming Haitian stability as a U.S. strategic interest in Sec. 8), this bill names the “irregular flow” of Haitian migrants to America and other nations as a principal concern (Sec. 2(1)) and a “national security interest” (Sec. 3(4)). Similarly, despite no mention of China in the first bill, the revised L.I.P. petitions Congress to consider investment in Haiti to fend off the “debt-trap driven development promoted by the People’s Republic of China” (Sec. 2(13)). The emphasis of U.S. national security concerns, including trade and development competition with China, telegraphs the depth with which U.S. politics are foregrounding China as the U.S.’s foremost rival and the “transactional realism” pervading the federal government’s foreign policy.
Is Solvency More Important than Sovereignty?
The elimination of U.S.A.I.D. and, if this Plan is passed, its replacement by the private sector and the I.D.F.C. is a mixed bag for Haitians. On the one hand, the Plan preserves some funding where there may otherwise be none, establishes a tactile framework for implementation with appreciable Haitian and Haitian-American participation, and provides mechanisms for accountability and transparency through mandated independent auditing and reporting (Sec. 9-10). However, on the other hand, it moves the Plan from a Haitian-first, grant-based program where Haitians have more freedoms, to a solvency-first, loan-based program where businesses in the economically imperiled country are subject to high standards of profitability and the Fund primarily looks out for its own ability to repay the U.S. federal government. These standards may be unattainable as long as supply chains are disrupted through Port-au-Prince and economic conditions continue to decline in lieu of a functioning government, leaving business owners unable to secure or repay funding from the U.S. Haiti is forced between a rock and a hard place. That is, if the hard place has any funding at all.
The Plan’s deference to private sector funding is a gamble between success and severe underinvestment. In some cases, such as the past American-led Enterprise Funds for post-Soviet European nations (e.g., Poland and Hungary) and post-Arab Spring nations (e.g., Tunisia and Egypt), Funds have succeeded in galvanizing economic transformation through newly attracted foreign direct investment, technology transfers, and the development of private equity and capital markets. However, these Funds were a joint mission administered through U.S.A.I.D and their select boards of directors. U.S.A.I.D. has now been eliminated by the second Trump administration.
Elsewhere, development finance administered as public-private partnerships have failed to deliver. Even where these independent partnerships have successfully attracted funding, projects are slow-moving, oft-closing, profit-driven, and, since 2012, ever-decreasing. As Dr. Charles Kenny of the Center for Global Development put it, “a dollar of multilateral and development finance support attracted just 37 cents in private equity and debt… Such investments have little hope of being ‘transformative’ or ‘market building.’” This poor private funding is especially poignant given the rise of “Haiti Fatigue” internationally, which may further dissuade firms from participating in the L.I.P. The solution, instead, should be increased, reliable public funding.
There are other, less conspicuous harms, such as extractivist derisking, which is where the government mixes or replaces public funds with private funds to add an air of investor safety to the project. The purpose of this shifting of development finance from public coffers like U.S.A.I.D. to the I.D.F.C. is to leverage public resources so that private investments appear less risky to investors. Then, after attracting private investment, the government steps back and allows private managers to determine the terms of trade– typically by imposing price hikes or offtake agreements to achieve a profit. This for-profit administration of development subjugates the needs and will of the people to that of financiers, as has been seen in privately-backed Asian and African hospitals that denied care or detained patients, or the exploitative pricing of power from plants in Nigeria and Kenya. Both cases, despite providing some benefit to the local populace, also resulted in a transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich that the poor cannot afford in the long-term. The danger here is clear: Haitian policymakers and private sector, understandably desperate for aid as the economy limps forward and the government struggles, are ripe targets for exploitation by American financiers that may leave Haiti further indebted, rather than empowered.
There are reforms included in the revised L’Ouverture Investment Plan, now the L’Ouverture Economic Development Plan for Haiti, that are welcome additions, such as the anti-corruption measures. However, the persistent lack of international financial institution reforms and reparations, the truncated investment total and timeline, the mandate for returns-on-investment, and the risk of extractivist derisking usurping the benefits of Haitian economic development for profit leave much to be desired. These issues must be corrected for any U.S.-based, Haiti-focused effort to be a success.
The ongoing withdrawal of the U.S. from the world stage under Trump is troublesome and warrants some of the changes included in this legislation, but it must not be an excuse to undermine our shared objectives of Haitian prosperity.
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