Failing-state Haiti has degenerated into chaos again; should the US care? Here are a few things to consider:

1. Refugee Crisis
2. Proximity of instability to Puerto Rico and Guantanamo Bay
3. Narco-trafficking
4. Monroe Doctrine
5. Humanitarian crisis

Re: refugee crisis, the US is already overwhelmed by an illegal alien crisis. Historically, the US has absorbed refugees from Haiti. The Biden Admin appears to be following prior practices by planning on refugee processing at Guantanamo Bay. As the US economy weakens due to inflation, credit constraints, government deficits, and job killing government regulations, the Haitians will not find a succeeding economy capable of absorbing them.

Re: proximity to Puerto Rico and Guantanamo Bay, ongoing instability could be close to the US. Consider how instability in Yemen and Somalia impacted trade through the Suez canal. Do we want Pirates of the Caribbean reenacted outside the Panama Canal from bases in Haiti? What would the ransom on a cruise ship of passengers be? How does redirecting naval assets to the Caribbean impact deployments related to conflicts in Israel-Gaza, Taiwan & South China Sea, and Ukraine?

Re: narco-trafficking, does a chaotic Haiti offer alternatives to drug smugglers? Could China use Haiti for fentanyl production and distribution? After the shipment of illegal aliens to Democrat controlled cities, the mood in the US is leaning towards securing the southern border which will push drug smugglers to find new routes potentially based in Haiti. Could Nigerian gangs that have been active in Asia see Haiti’s chaos as a new opportunity for trafficking?

Re: Monroe Doctrine, US policy is to keep other countries out of our hemisphere yet China, Iran, and Russia have been meddling. Countries whose missiles cannot reach the US might be able to with an installation in Haiti. Would a gang in Port-au-Prince accept military assistance from Russia and grant access for the Russian navy? If not Russia, how about China? A vacuum of US action invites other to do so.

Re: humanitarian crisis, the world is full of such suffering so Haiti becomes another one of many. While humanitarian interests play well on TV and make women voters weepy, they are tertiary interest to the US, hierarchically below our vital and important interests. There are cannibals in Indonesia and we aren’t staging a humanitarian intervention there. At the moment, Americans are more concerned about gangs and criminal violence in Democrat run American cities instead of Haiti.

Overall, the US government should and does care about stabilizing Haiti. Likely the formulas of the past will be repeated by supporting the creation of a new Haiti government using US diplomatic and economic power. However, sending US troops is unlikely for historical reasons and because the Haiti crisis isn’t that important yet. Meanwhile, the US will not make a long-term fix to Haiti, which is ultimately the job of Haitians to accomplish.