Two Nations, One Island, Diverging Destinies: Haiti and the Dominican Republic’s Path to Development
While Haiti and the Dominican Republic share the same formerly colonial island of Hispaniola, in modern contexts, they resemble one of the starkest contrasts in developmental and environmental differences. How did these differences emerge throughout history? How can both countries move forward to provide the best quality of life for their citizens without incurring further ecological damage?
Introduction
It is no secret that the former French slave colony of Haiti has a history riddled with natural disasters, economic failures, and rampant corruption. It is especially not surprising that the nation, which President Trump openly referred to as a “shithole country”(NBC 2025), before claiming that Haitian immigrants were eating their neighbors’ pets in Ohio (Thomson 2024), has continuously struggled against minimizing its poverty and to realize the democratic ideals of its constitution as the first successful slave republic of the African diaspora. Beyond Trump's uninformed derogatory comments, perceptions of Haiti on a global scale have never been especially favorable. Recently, the country has been in the news for the assassination of its president, the gang-affiliated takeover of its government and the natural disasters that have created a never-ending humanitarian crisis (NPR 2024). The story on the other side of the island could not be more different. The Dominican Republic, while sharing the tropical island of Hispaniola, is the model of the Caribbean and has become its wealthiest nation. Since the 1980s, the Dominican Republic has been engaged in a free trade agreement with the United States, their largest trading partner, which yielded an estimated $108.5 billion in 2022 between the two nations (U.S. Trade Representative 2022). As a result of this relationship, the country has become a haven for US tourists, becoming the most popular destination in the Caribbean, with over 2.5 million Americans journeying in 2023 (Forbes 2024). Unlike Haiti, whose deforestation has long been an environmental concern, the DR’s energy sector is no longer reliant on extracting its own natural resources and has been able to switch to alternatives such as gas and oil which are not actively degrading its environment (Life Powered 2018). Although the DR may be the fastest growing economy in the Caribbean, its citizens still face great wealth inequality, and many of them are concerned about the harm caused by the American tourist sector. While both countries today face significant challenges, their disparity in economic and environmental outcomes must be understood by examining each country's colonial history, the role of US interventions and foreign banks, as well as how authoritarian regimes shaped their respective trajectories.
Colonial Origins
The Island of Hispaniola was discovered by the west through Christopher Columbus in 1492, leading to the creation of the Spanish colony, Santo Domingo, as the first European settlement in the Americas. Up until the 17th century, the island experienced colonial activity by the Spanish, Portuguese, English and French, but served mainly as a hub for piracy, to the concern of its indigenous Arawak and Taino inhabitants, whose population fell by 95% during these years (U.S. National Library of Medicine 2025). During this time, European skirmishes for control of the island led to a treaty between the Spanish and French, dividing the land into Saint Domingue (Haiti) under the control of the French, and San Domingo (DR) for the Spanish. Haiti rapidly became the wealthiest colony in the New World, boasting a booming monoculture economy based around sugar and the free labor of enslaved Africans (Baver 2014). Spain had likewise discovered the potential of a plantation-based economy in Hispaniola but did not invest as heavily as the French, as the Spanish discovered wealthier mainland indigenous populations in Mexico, Peru and Bolivia, where they established arguably more lucrative and successful colonies (Diamond 2005). This was to the benefit of the French who invested in Saint Domingue by importing large numbers of slaves and developing large plantations.
At this point in the 18th century, Saint Domingue was comprised of 85% slaves, boasting 6 times the population of San Domingo despite only taking up one-third of the island (Baver 2014), and “became the richest European colony in the New World and contributed one-quarter of France’s wealth” (Diamond 2005). Hispaniola’s geography must also be considered to understand the environmental and economic differences between the two nations. The island of Hispaniola is a tropical and mountainous island, situated on a set of fault lines that threaten Haiti much more than the Dominican Republic. The island is also characterized by the “Rainfall Effect” because of the island's topography, resulting in Haiti receiving less rainfall than the Dominican Republic, which means a worse performing agricultural economy and a slower replenishing tree cover. (Baver 2014) Haiti’s early success as France’s most important colony has continued to haunt its now freed people as Haiti’s high population density, which had been to the advantage of its colonizers who turned the Island into a capital-maximizing plantation, would only harm and apply pressure on the developing country. This would also have long-lasting environmental effects, as Martinican historian Méderic Louis Moreau de Saint-Méry “chronicled the colonists’ indifference to the impact of the colony’s too-rapid deforestation, especially on the extinction of local animal species, the intensification of soil erosion, and the reduction in rain levels,”(Baver 2014) highlighting the ecological consequences of unchecked colonial exploitation.
Independence
It is vital to examine the conditions and the resulting aftermath of each nation’s fight for independence in order to contextualize the success and failures of their post-colonial efforts. The Haitian Revolution began as a violent slave rebellion in 1791, which ended in 1804 with the colonizers being mostly dead or exiled. This and the lack of stability in France at the time prompted the nation to move on from their North American holdings such as the Louisiana Purchase. Despite the dreams of millions of freed slaves being realized, the practices of their colonizer’s agricultural overproduction had become standard for the newly independent nation. As the degradation of its natural environment accelerated, the kind of agriculture had to be changed as much of Haiti’s core infrastructure, such as its massive plantations, had been destroyed during the revolution. This changed the face of agriculture from plantations to small family farms, which were not able to match the industrial production of plantations. While Haiti’s independence was historically significant, “it proved, in the long run, disastrous for Haiti’s agricultural productivity, exports and economy,” (Diamond 2005) while also diminishing its population after “the killing of much of its white population and the emigration of the remainder” (Robinson 2019). The aftermath of Haiti’s independence was bloody and chaotic, and the new country remained under foreign influence despite its newfound sovereignty. The United States, starting with Thomas Jefferson, “worked to isolate Haiti diplomatically and strangle it economically, fearing that the success of Haiti would inspire slave revolts back home” (Rosalsky 2021).
Despite Haiti being much wealthier with a larger population compared to the Dominican Republic throughout the 19th century, public conceptions abroad have been constructed around what Cedric Robinson has called “racial capitalism,” (Robinson 2019) such that, “to European eyes, the oversimplified image was of the Dominican Republic as a Spanish-speaking, partly European society receptive to European immigrants and trade, while Haiti was seen as a Creole-Speaking African society composed of ex-slaves and hostile to foreigners” (Diamond 2005). This fear of the black-led nation, the first to abolish slavery, continued long beyond its inception with the United States not even recognizing Haiti’s sovereignty until 1862, after Abraham Lincoln abolished slavery. Haiti’s post-revolutionary governance also made its attempts to make allies out of its neighbors fruitless. Latin American countries like Panama refused any kind of diplomatic relations with Haiti. Despite currently receiving aid from organizations like the UN and formerly USAID, this isolation continues in the 21st century with the Panamanian president recently explaining his lack of support stating that “Haiti is not recognized as a Latin American country. Haitians speak a different language. They have different ethnic roots, a different culture. They are very different altogether.” (The Washington Post 2024) Haiti’s bloody revolution against its white ‘masters’ and unique ethnic background only contributed to Haiti’s diplomatic and economic isolation. This economic isolation was made worse by Haiti’s tortured debt history, which began in 1825 when King Charles X ordered Haiti to pay 90 million Francs, equivalent to 21 billion USD today, in reparations. This obscene debt would hobble Haiti’s already struggling economy for most of its history. As one could expect, Haiti could not match this sum, as the first annual payment required for the debt was six times Haiti’s annual GDP (Gamio 2022). This further contributed to Haiti’s economic strategy mimicking that of their French colonizers, exploiting their natural resources and exporting cash crops, although their production had drastically decreased since the events of the revolution. Environmental concerns, while acknowledged, were the least of Haiti’s problems as the debt first imposed in 1825 began a long history of default and foreign overregulation that has disrupted Haiti’s hopes for an independent economy. The Dominican Republic clearly benefited from a more advantageous post-colonial period as they did not share the same level of debt concern, economic isolation or environmental degradation.
American Foreign Policy
The disparities between the two countries would likewise become in the mid-20th century. Throughout the 20th century, both countries shared similarities in that they were both occupied by the United States in times of political instability which gave way to authoritarian regimes in both countries respectively. Amid World War I, following the interventionist policies of Theodore Roosevelt and William Taft’s ‘dollar diplomacy’, United States foreign policy had shifted, as Woodrow Wilson launched several military interventions: Haiti in 1915 and the Dominican Republic in 1916 (Hudson 2017). Both interventions were launched ostensibly to reinstate order in the politically unstable island out of fear of European occupation, particularly Germany during a time of the war. However, the intervention in Haiti carried more ulterior and sinister motives as indicated by the sheer length of the intervention, 1915-1934 in Haiti versus 1916-1924 in the DR. The military intervention in the Dominican Republic was primarily conducted to seize the Dominican Customs Service, the sole source of revenue for the government, and to reallocate the funds towards its debt payments, the same alleged reason for the intervention in Haiti (Hudson 2017). The intervention was despised by the citizens of the Dominican Republic, but ended sooner, giving rise to the lengthy dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo, a controversial but pivotal figure. The intervention in Haiti, however, lasted more than two decades and completely restricted and controlled the country’s development while being primarily conducted through and for the interests of private banks, most notably the City Bank Group, who discovered an opportunity to profit from the servicing of Haitian debt.
The United States intervention in Haiti was outwardly characterized as a classic example of American interventionist policy in reducing political instability. In reality, the United States’ imperialist foreign policy used its private banks as tools to turn the nation into an “American Slave Colony” (Hudson 2017). In the late 19th century, since Haiti was not able to maintain its debt payments, France, Germany and later the United States had restructured Haiti’s debt. While this is similar to what occurred in the Dominican Republic, what happened in Haiti was far more pervasive, especially after the US acquired Haiti’s treasury in 1911. CitiBank, known as The City Bank of New York then, acting as a foreign banking institution with close relations to the administration of President Taft, began acquiring railroads in Haiti and established itself as the most reliable and central bank of Haiti. City Bank, Wilson, Taft, and Roosevelt, wasted no time in extracting resources from Haiti as early as 1914 when nearly all gold reserves were removed from Haitian banks under the pretext of ‘political instability’ in Haiti, despite complaints and appeals by the US Minister to Haiti. During this time City Bank extracted some of its largest profit margins at the price of Haiti’s economy, independence, and civil liberties as its citizens were forced to work on various projects under pressure from the U.S. Marines while private banks extracted its resources, until the end of the U.S. occupation—with some City Bank officers retaining their positions in running Haiti’s finances for decades after the end of the occupation, completely derailing the island nation (Hudson 2017).
Authoritarian Rule
In the years after the American occupation, Haiti would experience several turbulent regimes, while the Dominican Republic became seemingly unified under the two-decade-long dictatorship of Trujillo. While Trujillo was known for using terror and political assassinations to maintain power, Diamond credits him with modernizing the Dominican Republic’s economy and establishing the first cohesive and successful environmental policy in the Dominican Republic. During his authoritarian rule, “Trujillo developed the economy, infrastructure and industries”, through an effort to modernize the Dominican Republic economy and switching the main industry away from agricultural exports. Trujillo also established the first forestry protection in the Dominican Republic, continuing the country’s “long history of direct intervention in forest management and regulation from even the colonial period” (Baver 2014) while establishing the first national parks. Trujillo ordered scientists to conduct environmental surveys of the Dominican Republic’s national resources and to study the local forestry and purposefully leave “mature trees standing as sources of seed for natural reforestation,” while “commissioning a Swedish study of the Republic’s potential for building dams for hydroelectric power” (Hudson 2017).
Trujillo’s regime ultimately fell apart after his assassination, replaced shortly thereafter by Joaquin Balaguer, another ruthless dictator, who surprisingly took an even more aggressive approach in environmental conservation than his authoritarian predecessor in Trujillo. Balaguer declared illegal logging as a criminal offense against the state, and when some loggers persisted, Balaguer ordered the armed forces to raid and kill anyone breaking the environmental protection laws that he had established. After he was removed from office from 1978 to 1986, “on the first day of his return to the presidency, Balaguer began issuing executive orders to close logging camps and sawmills, and on the next day he deployed military helicopters to detect logging and intrusions into military parks” (Diamond 2005). Balaguer was not only responsible for this extreme environmental conservation, as he “founded the Aquarium, the Botanical Garden and the Natural History Museum,” and rebuilt the National Zoo, he also focused on the modernization of the Dominican’s energy sources. Unlike Haiti, which is still heavily dependent on charcoal and non-renewable natural gas, Balaguer began the country's investment into hydroelectric power and built strong relationships with foreign countries, notably with Venezuela, to switch from logging for charcoal production to using crude oil and natural gas. This could not have been possible without the establishment of the Free Trade Zone in the Dominican Republic in 1969 (World Customs Organization 2019).
After Trujillo’s assassination, the United States once again intervened in the Dominican Republic to minimize political unrest. This time however, the Dominican Republic was able to somewhat reconcile with their invaders following the ending of a brutal regime which led to the Dominican Republic building a strong relationship with the United States, leading to the creation of the Free Trade Zone. This agreement is what is responsible for the Dominican Republic being one of the wealthiest countries in Latin America, as this agreement “favored the emergence of high-growth, outward-oriented industrial production in free-trade zones and tourism has resulted in a dualistic economic structure” (Phillip and Cardoso 2001). The Dominican Republic would later become “a founding member of the Association of Caribbean States (ACS), a body launched in January 1995, [which] promotes trade liberalization and regional economic integration within the Caribbean basin”(Phillip M. and Cardoso 2001). The Dominican Republic has emerged as the model for building a near first world country in the Caribbean and Latin America, through being able to modernize its economy out of agricultural exploitation towards services, industry and tourism, changing its energy sources, and establishing meaningful environmental protections, in stark contrast to its next door neighbor Haiti.
Much like the Dominican Republic, Haiti emerged from its occupation by the United States into a series of authoritarian regimes. However, unlike the Dominican Republic, these various dictators largely did not seek to modernize their country, nor were they able to sustain a positive relationship with the United States. After the end of the United States occupation in 1934, dozens of provisional presidents came to power and ended their reign as soon as they began struggling with political opponents and the failing economy that the United States left behind. In 1957, the Duvalier regime began with the rise of Papa Doc Duvalier and later his son Jean Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier who ruled until 1986 when he was exiled. Throughout this period, and beyond, Haiti’s main source of GDP came from agricultural exports of monoculture crops like coffee and sugar, but “the amount exported remained constant while the population continued to grow” (Diamond 2017). The nation and its economy remained relatively stagnant as “Duvalier differed from Trujillo in his lack of interest in modernizing his country or in developing an industrial economy for his country or for himself” (Diamond 2017). To this day Haiti is heavily reliant on charcoal as its primary source of energy, resulting in the constant loss in tree cover and massive amounts of CO2 emissions per capita, since unlike the Dominican Republic, they do not have the international connections to source adequate amounts of natural gas and oil to prevent deforestation. The differences in quality of life between the Dominican Republic grew as millions of Haitians began to emigrate to the United States and to the Dominican Republic itself, where they were met with prejudice, racism, and violence due to the historical animosity between the two nations. Haiti’s economy was so outdated and so reliant on its agricultural exports that it became the poorest country in the Americas, with nonexistent environmental conservation policies until constitutional reforms were made in 1987.
Modern Hispaniola
Haiti’s government and people are clearly not solely to blame for its disastrous environmental and economic state. Haiti, from the beginning, was founded as a timber and agricultural export colony, which impacts the country’s economy and environment till now, so much so that “Haiti’s lowlands and mid mountain slopes had been largely stripped of timber by the mid-19th century” (Eliscar 2011) Diamond notes the following paradox: despite Haiti having an initial advantage in its rich agricultural economy and wealth over the Dominican Republic, this “burst of agricultural wealth came at the expense of its environmental capital of forests and soils” (USAID 2024). Today, Haiti is characterized by its failed attempts at modernizing its economy, its failed infrastructure (completely unsuitable at minimizing damage caused by natural disasters such as the 2010 Earthquake or Hurricane George, which destroyed 80% of its crops in 2004), and its ongoing political instability, which has meant that foreign aid for Haiti has largely been squandered due inadequate governance (Eliscar 2011).
Solutions and Conclusions
In 2025, the Dominican Republic emerges as one of Latin America’s fastest growing economies, boasting a robust GDP growth of 4.5%, driven by their booming tourist sectors and expansion into manufacturing thanks to Free Trade Zones. The nation is leveraging public-private partnerships to boost infrastructure and energy projects while addressing wealth inequality through discussions on stronger social welfare programs. Environmental measures, including strict deforestation controls, national park investments, and ambitious reforestation targets aimed at increasing forest cover by 15% by 2030, complement sustainable urban initiatives such as clean public transportation in Santo Domingo (National Cooperative Business Association 2024). On the energy front, the country is aggressively transitioning toward renewables—with solar, wind, natural gas, and hydroelectric power diversifying its energy mix—supported by significant foreign investment in rural electrification and solar microgrid projects. In contrast, Haiti continues to face deep-rooted challenges as the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, struggling with persistent economic decline driven by political instability, gang-related violence, high inflation, and worsening food insecurity. With minimal foreign investment and an overreliance on remittances and international aid, Haiti’s economic recovery is further hindered by severe environmental degradation, including the loss of over 98% of its forests due to reliance on charcoal (USAID 2024). Although small-scale reforestation and renewable energy projects, such as solar microgrids and proposed hydroelectric initiatives, are underway, progress is slow and often stalled by political and financial instability.
The path forward for both nations involves actionable, targeted reforms that build on their unique situations. For the Dominican Republic, advancing renewable energy initiatives especially in solar and wind and deepening public-private partnerships can further modernize its infrastructure and stimulate innovation. Coupled with focused social programs to ensure inclusive growth and minimize wealth inequality, these measures promise to cement its role as a regional leader in sustainable development. Meanwhile, Haiti’s recovery hinges on establishing transparent and stable governance to effectively manage resources and aid, alongside investing in local renewable energy projects and modernizing its agricultural practices. The country must also present itself as a safer investment for foreign aid as several of the NGOs who work with the country have been unable to provide aid to its citizens due to gang violence. By empowering communities through vocational training and microfinance, Haiti can spark grassroots entrepreneurship and create a more resilient economy. Ultimately, collaborative international partnerships and a steadfast commitment to these concrete steps will be vital in transforming challenges into opportunities for long-term progress across Hispaniola.
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