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Deputy Secretary Landau Co-Hosts Haiti Event, Pushes UN Gang Suppression Force and Corruption Designations

September 23, 2025 · U.S. Department of State · 0:05:35

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What happened

Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau co-hosted a high-level event on support for Haiti with Kenyan President William Ruto in New York on September 22, 2025, according to the State Department. Landau said Haiti stands at a crossroads, with gangs terrorizing communities in Port-au-Prince, extorting families, and recruiting children, and he thanked Kenya for its courageous leadership of the Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission and the lives of three of its people lost.

Landau said the MSS lacks the mandate and resources for the scale of the challenge. He said the United States and Panama, working with Haiti, have introduced a UN Security Council resolution to establish a larger gang suppression force with a broader mandate, plus a UN support office for Haiti to provide operational and logistical support. The proposed force would number more than 5,500 personnel — more than five times the current MSS — and operate under a Chapter VII mandate to proactively target gangs, reduce their territorial control, secure critical infrastructure, and conduct anti-gang operations, as he stated it. He said all 32 Organization of American States members signed a joint statement urging urgent passage, and he pressed for adoption before the MSS mandate expires on October 2.

Landau also announced that the State Department is publicly designating two former Haitian officials — former deputy Arnel Belizaire and former senator Antonio Chéramy — for involvement in significant corruption, rendering them and their immediate family members ineligible for entry into the United States. He said the era of impunity is over and that the U.S. will pursue those supporting terrorist gangs through indictments, arrests, sanctions, arms seizures, and immigration restrictions, while calling on all UN member states to fund and support the new force.

Why it matters

The event is the administration’s Haiti policy in one package: a much larger Chapter VII force to replace an under-resourced mission, corruption designations against named Haitian figures, and an explicit demand that other countries share a burden the U.S. says it can no longer carry mostly alone.

Scoreboard watch

The dated test in Landau’s remarks is the October 2 expiration of the MSS mandate — the deadline by which he pressed the Security Council to adopt the gang suppression force resolution.

Sources: U.S. Department of State, “Deputy Secretary Landau Co-Hosts a High-Level Event on Support for Haiti with Kenyan President Ruto”, 2025-09-23 (official upload, embedded above; published 2025-09-23). Transcript via Supadata (private research store, paraphrased and attributed, not republished). All figures and characterizations as stated by the speakers.