
Boston-based investment banker Mark Hall is calling attention of the US administration to retake the issues tackled in 2019 by a Center for Strategic and International Study (CSIS) report that looked into ways to stop the profiteering by military and government in both Haiti and the Dominican Republic that he writes has delayed real solutions to the multidimensional crisis in Haiti. Hall lives part-time in the Dominican Republic.
“One can only hope that Secretary Rubio will have frank discussion with President Abinader in moving forward with the installation of a ‘workable’ border that combines security and commerce in a single system that would support the national priorities of both countries as well as the political, economic, social, and cultural needs of the populations. But for this to happen, it will surely require dealing with the powerful interests on both sides of the border who are profiting from the current situation,” writes Hall in a letter to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the occasion of his upcoming visit with President Abinader.
Hall points out that US Secretary Marco Rubio will be arriving to the Dominican Republic this Wednesday, 5 February 2025. President Abinader has said challenges at the border with Haiti and regional security are number one priority on the agenda.
Hall is dusting off the 2019 border solution strategy drafted by the Center for Strategic and International Study of the United States in 2019 that identified border solutions. “This report not only addressed the ongoing security and illicit activities and it also provided detailed recommendations for both the Dominican Republic and Haiti on how to eliminate the corruption at the border, normalize trade and collect the one billion dollars in lost custom tariffs,” he writes in an email sent to DR1 News.
Hall says during the past Trump administration, former US Ambassador Robin Bernstein had sought to follow through with the CSIS report recommendations and begin to take actions, but with the change of administration, the actions were replaced by other priorities.
Hall is optimistic new steps will be taken and mentions that the newly named US State Department’s Special Envoy for Latin America Maurice Claver-Carone when serving as president of the Interamerican Development Bank had begun discussions for funding from multilateral lenders for Haiti for a border surveillance project to instate technology to check goods and people contraband at the border.
Read more:
CSIS Report
Presidency
4 February 2025