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A historical, genetic, economic, geopolitical, strategic and institutional analysis by CPGNNews: CaribPulse Global News Network

A multilingual international editorial platform born in the Caribbean.

Analysis of major contemporary political, economic, social and geopolitical transformations, their consequences for states, markets, businesses and societies, with a particular perspective from the Caribbean.

By the CPGNNews Editorial Board | Global Perspective, a Caribbean Reading

August 23, 2026

Think the Caribbean. Understand the World.

ONE ISLAND, TWO STATES, A DESTINY THAT REMAINS SHARED

Hispaniola represents one of the Caribbean’s most striking geopolitical paradoxes: one island, two sovereign states, two distinct national formations and, despite this political separation, a geographic, human, ecological and economic interdependence that no border can fully erase. The Dominican Republic, confronted for several years with the worsening political, security, economic and humanitarian crisis in Haiti, has progressively placed this deterioration at the heart of its conception of national security. Under the presidency of Luis Abinader, reelected in 2024, this orientation has translated into a dramatic strengthening of border controls and into a conception of the border as an essential instrument for protecting Dominican sovereignty, security and stability. Yet it would be equally reductive to portray this policy simply as an expression of anti-Haitian nationalism as it would be to deny the depth of the security and social concerns that sustain it within Dominican society.

The real question raised by the current evolution is therefore not whether the Dominican Republic has the right to protect its territory, control its borders or define its migration policy. That right derives from its sovereignty and cannot seriously be disputed. The strategic question is of a different nature: how far can a policy of separation be pushed on an island whose geographic, economic, environmental and human realities remain structurally interdependent? Dominican security can be legitimate without the permanent construction of Haiti as an all-encompassing threat necessarily being effective in the long term. Likewise, Dominican sovereignty can be consolidated without requiring national identity to be continuously defined in opposition to that of its neighbor.

It is within this tension that the central issue of this article lies. A policy intended to protect Dominican stability could, if it permanently transforms the Haitian crisis into an identity-based threat, produce a strategic contradiction: seeking to preserve the prosperity of one state while contributing, directly or indirectly, to the deterioration of the human, economic and geopolitical environment in which that prosperity exists. The purpose of this analysis is therefore neither to deny the historical differences between the two societies, nor to relativize the responsibilities of states, nor to substitute a moral judgment for geopolitical analysis. It is to understand how a border can protect a state without becoming the principle around which lasting hostility is constructed, and how two societies sharing the same geography can organize their coexistence without confusing sovereignty, security, identity and antagonism.

HISPANIOLA BEFORE IT WAS A BORDER

Before becoming an international border, Hispaniola was first and foremost a geographic reality. The island forms a continuous territorial system crossed by mountain ranges, rivers, watersheds and ecosystems whose dynamics do not stop at the political boundaries established between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. This physical continuity constitutes a fundamental strategic reality: water, soils, ecosystems, climate phenomena, natural resources and part of the economic activity belong to island systems that necessarily transcend administrative borders. A border can regulate human movement and commercial exchanges; it cannot prevent a watershed from functioning as a watershed, a cyclone from crossing the island, or an ecosystem from experiencing the consequences of degradation on the other side.

This continuity is also far older than the two contemporary states. Long before Christopher Columbus arrived in 1492, Hispaniola was integrated into a Caribbean space traversed by Indigenous peoples, including groups belonging to the cultural and linguistic traditions now associated with the Taíno. Archaeological and paleogenetic research has profoundly reshaped our understanding of this history. A study published in Nature, drawing on genomic data from ancient individuals from Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico and other Caribbean areas, shows that pre-contact populations were not isolated groups, but belonged to a world marked by circulation, exchange and a degree of regional genetic continuity. Researchers identified ancestry associated with ceramic-age populations related to Arawakan language speakers and demonstrated that this ancestry remains detectable in certain contemporary Caribbean populations.

This discovery has considerable significance for the intellectual history of the island, but it must be interpreted rigorously. Ancient genetics does not allow contemporary populations to be portrayed as biologically pure extensions of pre-Columbian societies, nor does it provide a basis for defining national identity. Rather, it shows that political and colonial ruptures never completely erased earlier human continuities. The history of Hispaniola is therefore one of successive transformations, movements, mixtures and demographic recompositions, in which contemporary national categories cannot be projected backward onto populations living within a radically different political world.

European colonization subsequently transformed this balance. Beginning in the late fifteenth century, the Spanish conquest produced demographic, economic and social changes of extraordinary magnitude. Indigenous populations were decimated by disease, violence, exploitation and the disruption of existing social structures. The demographic collapse that followed the conquest contributed to a radical transformation of the island’s economic system and opened the way to the mass introduction of Africans subjected to enslavement. The formation of the societies that would later become Haitian and Dominican is therefore inseparable from the violent encounter between Indigenous peoples, Europeans and Africans, followed by successive recompositions produced by several centuries of colonial rule.

During the seventeenth century, French presence gradually became established in the western part of the island. The Treaty of Ryswick in 1697 diplomatically formalized this new reality by recognizing French presence in the west, while the eastern part remained under Spanish rule. This development did not constitute an instantaneous separation between two perfectly distinct societies; rather, it progressively institutionalized a political and imperial differentiation that, over the centuries, would produce two increasingly divergent colonial trajectories. In the west, Saint-Domingue became one of the most productive and brutal plantation economies in the Atlantic world, founded on slavery and the mass importation of African captives. In the east, Santo Domingo retained a colonial economy less heavily structured around the intensive sugar model of Saint-Domingue and developed a different demographic and social trajectory. These divergences contributed to the formation of distinct societies, but they never completely eliminated exchanges or reciprocal influences.

The Haitian Revolution definitively transformed the balance of the island and the Atlantic world. Between 1791 and 1804, the uprising of the enslaved population of Saint-Domingue evolved into a political, military and social revolution that culminated in Haiti’s independence in 1804. The event was exceptional in modern history: a colonial society born of slavery succeeded in overturning the colonial order and establishing an independent state emerging from a revolution of enslaved people. Its significance immediately extended beyond the island, particularly because Haiti’s existence directly challenged the political, economic and racial foundations of the Atlantic slave order. This historical rupture subsequently weighed heavily on the political and identity-based representations that developed in the eastern part of the island, even though those representations were neither homogeneous nor immutable.

The trajectory of the east was itself profoundly unstable. After several changes of sovereignty, the eastern part of the island was incorporated into the Republic of Haiti in 1822 under Jean-Pierre Boyer, in a process that resulted in twenty-two years of Haitian rule over Santo Domingo. This period constitutes one of the major historical foundations of Dominican national memory. It cannot, however, be reduced to an eternal opposition between two supposedly incompatible peoples. Relations between the populations of the east and the Haitian authorities were shaped by divergent social interests, resistance, accommodation, political conflict and institutional transformation. In 1838, Juan Pablo Duarte and his companions founded La Trinitaria, a movement that played a central role in the independence struggle. The 1844 uprising led to the proclamation of Dominican independence and the emergence of the Dominican Republic as a sovereign state.

The birth of the Dominican Republic therefore established a lasting political separation, but it did not create geographic, ecological or human separation. The two states gradually constituted themselves as distinct nations, with their own institutions, dominant languages, historical memories and national narratives. Yet populations continued to move, trade, work, establish family relationships and live in borderlands where everyday reality did not always correspond to the categories imposed by states. The border thus became simultaneously a line of sovereignty and a space of contact.

This distinction is essential to understanding the contemporary crisis. Haiti and the Dominican Republic are two sovereign states; they do not constitute a single nation and must not be conflated. Yet they remain two societies situated on the same island, connected by ecological, economic and human systems that sovereignty cannot erase. Any serious analysis of Dominican policy toward Haiti must therefore hold these two apparently contradictory realities together: the absolute right of each state to its political existence and the persistence of island interdependence, which makes any strategy based on the idea of total separation impossible.

It is precisely within this space of tension between sovereignty and interdependence that the analysis of Luis Abinader’s political project begins. The Dominican border is no longer merely a territorial boundary to be controlled; it has become an instrument of national policy, a symbol of security and, increasingly, an element in the definition of political identity. Understanding this evolution now requires moving beyond geography and into the recent history of Dominican power, where the Haitian crisis, migration policy and the construction of the national narrative have begun to converge.

LUIS ABINADER AND THE NEW DOMINICAN BORDER DOCTRINE

Under Luis Abinader, the Haitian-Dominican border has become much more than a territorial dividing line: it has emerged as a central instrument of national security policy and one of the principal symbols of Dominican state action. This evolution cannot, however, be understood solely as an electoral construction or as a strategy of nationalist mobilization. It also responds to concrete realities that any serious analysis must acknowledge: the progressive collapse of Haitian institutions, the expansion of organized crime, cross-border trafficking, the increase in irregular migration movements, and the widespread concern within Dominican society that the Haitian crisis could generate direct effects on security, public services and national stability. In April 2025, Abinader announced fifteen additional measures intended to strengthen border surveillance, increase military personnel and intensify the fight against irregular migration, explicitly presenting the policy as a response to the Haitian crisis and as a matter of national sovereignty.

This doctrine rests on a relatively clear logic: preventing the deterioration of the situation in Haiti from becoming an internal Dominican problem. The construction of the border barrier is its most visible physical expression, but it represents only one component. The Dominican Republic has progressively combined separation infrastructure, an expanded military presence and technological surveillance systems. In September 2025, the Dominican presidency announced a new stage of the barrier, accompanied by a system incorporating fiber optics, thermal cameras, drones and motion sensors. The border is thus increasingly becoming a technologically dense surveillance space, in which control over human, commercial and security-related flows constitutes a permanent objective.

This evolution must be examined with a dual requirement. On the one hand, no state can be deprived of the right to control its territory, combat organized crime or determine the conditions governing entry and residence within its territory. In this respect, the Dominican Republic possesses the same sovereign prerogatives as any other state. On the other hand, transforming the border into an increasingly impermeable separation mechanism does not, by itself, guarantee the disappearance of the factors that generate insecurity. A border can slow certain flows, complicate certain criminal activities and strengthen the state’s surveillance capacity; it cannot, however, rebuild the institutions of the neighboring country, eliminate the economic causes of migration, or prevent the environmental, health and economic consequences of a prolonged crisis within a shared island space.

This is where Abinader’s policy presents its first strategic contradiction. The more the Haitian crisis deteriorates, the greater the Dominican Republic’s interest in protecting its territory; yet the more that crisis deteriorates, the more Dominican prosperity is exposed to the indirect consequences of that deterioration. The border thus becomes simultaneously a shield and a line of vulnerability. It protects Dominican territory against certain immediate effects of the crisis while reminding the country every day that the crisis cannot be physically moved a few dozen kilometers away. The question is therefore not simply the height of a barrier or the number of soldiers deployed. It concerns the ability of a state to distinguish what it can contain territorially from what it must help stabilize politically, economically and regionally.

Presidential discourse occupies a particular place within this architecture. When a head of state describes the crisis in a neighboring country primarily through categories such as threat, crime, invasion or destabilization, he is not merely delivering a message to the agencies responsible for security. He is participating in the formation of collective perceptions. This symbolic dimension has considerable strategic importance. A population can support a strict policy of border control without necessarily considering the entire population of the neighboring country a threat. It is precisely this distinction that political discourse must preserve. Conflating criminality with nationality, irregular migration with Haitian identity, or institutional crisis with the supposed nature of a people creates a generalization that extends far beyond the legitimate objectives of national security.

It would nevertheless be unfair to reduce Abinader’s discourse to a single logic of confrontation. His policy also contains a pragmatic dimension: the Dominican Republic must manage an active border, substantial commercial exchanges, interdependent border communities and a crisis that cannot be completely isolated from Dominican territory. This is why the analysis must distinguish between the different layers of public policy: administrative decisions, military imperatives, economic interests, presidential statements and electoral rhetoric do not necessarily produce the same effects. To conflate them would lead to a reading as simplistic as the one that treats every security measure as hostile or, conversely, every criticism of Dominican policy as a denial of the right to security.

The real debate therefore begins elsewhere. The Dominican Republic must control its border; that question is not in dispute. It must combat trafficking; it must protect its institutions; it must prevent criminal networks from exploiting border porosity. But it must simultaneously prevent national security from becoming a category broad enough to absorb every negative perception of Haiti and its population. When security ceases to identify behaviors, networks and identifiable threats and begins implicitly to designate a nationality, it changes in nature. It no longer protects only a physical border; it begins to construct an identity border.

It is this second border that deserves particular attention. A barrier can be moved, strengthened or redesigned. A collective representation of the enemy, once deeply embedded, is far more difficult to dismantle. And when that representation becomes one of the elements defining national identity, it can produce a paradoxical effect: temporarily strengthening the sense of domestic cohesion while reducing the state’s ability to build with its neighbor the mechanisms of cooperation that its own security will require over the long term.

HISPANIOLA AND THE TRAP OF IDENTITY REDUCTION

The deepest strategic risk emerges when the legitimate distinction between two nations begins to be transformed into an existential opposition between two populations. The Dominican Republic is a sovereign state; Haiti is another. Both countries possess their own institutions, dominant languages, political traditions, historical memories, and national narratives. Recognizing this difference is the starting point for any serious analysis. But recognizing two distinct national identities does not mean that one must be constructed as the permanent antithesis of the other.

This distinction is particularly important in the case of Hispaniola because the history of the island does not correspond to contemporary national categories. Populations have moved, mixed, exchanged, worked on both sides of the border and participated in shared historical dynamics long before the creation of the two modern states. Ecological systems also remain interdependent. Watersheds, rivers, ecosystems, climate risks and certain economic chains operate at the scale of the island rather than that of national administrations. Sovereignty is therefore an absolute political reality; interdependence is an equally indisputable geographical reality.

This reality makes any attempt to define Dominican identity through a biological opposition to Haiti particularly fragile. A nation is not a genetic category. It is the product of history, institutions, language, collective memory, cultural practices and a shared political experience. The Dominican Republic possesses a perfectly legitimate national identity without needing to demonstrate a supposed biological separation from Haiti. Likewise, Haitian identity cannot be reduced to a particular genetic composition. Both societies have been shaped by centuries of colonization, slavery, migration, mixing, conflict, resistance and successive political constructions.

Genetics makes this distinction even more important. Contemporary Caribbean populations bear the traces of several centuries of migration and demographic recomposition. Available data show varying European, African and Indigenous contributions depending on populations, regions, individuals and methodologies. They also show that present political borders do not correspond to ancient biological boundaries. But they do not allow one to conclude that the two nations are genetically identical either. Science can reconstruct population histories; it does not provide a biological definition of the nation.

The danger appears when this scientific distinction is deliberately erased. If a cultural or national difference is transformed into a supposed biological difference, identity ceases to be a historical construction and becomes a supposedly natural essence. This logic is particularly dangerous in a space where colonial history, racial questions, the memory of slavery and relations of power have left such profound traces. It can give political categories a scientific appearance that they do not possess. It can also transform real social and historical differences into supposedly natural boundaries between populations.

The same mechanism can appear in political language. Speaking of cross-border crime identifies an identifiable phenomenon. Speaking of irregular migration identifies a legal situation. Speaking of armed groups or trafficking identifies specific actors and networks. By contrast, using a nationality as a general category of threat transforms a complex reality into a collectively suspect identity. It is precisely this shift that a democratic state must avoid, not out of weakness, but for reasons of effectiveness. A security policy becomes more precise when it distinguishes individuals according to their conduct and legal circumstances rather than according to their national origin.

The problem is therefore not merely moral. It is also strategic. When an entire population is progressively associated with insecurity, every form of cooperation becomes politically more costly. Border entrepreneurs, traders, local authorities, humanitarian organizations, academic institutions and even public administrations may be suspected of a proximity to the Other that did not previously exist. Distrust then extends beyond genuine security problems and ultimately reduces the space available for pragmatic solutions.

This is how a physical border can become a psychological border. The wall then ceases to be merely a control infrastructure and becomes a symbol of otherness. The neighbor is no longer simply a different state; it becomes the Other against whom the nation defines itself. Yet a national identity constructed primarily through opposition risks becoming dependent on the permanent existence of its symbolic adversary. Political stability may then derive part of its cohesion from a crisis that it would nevertheless have an interest in seeing disappear.

This dynamic constitutes one of the most important paradoxes of the current situation. The Dominican Republic needs a Haitian state capable of controlling its territory, combating criminal organizations, guaranteeing its institutions and participating in bilateral cooperation mechanisms. Yet if public discourse transforms Haiti into an absolute threat, any improvement in the Haitian situation could paradoxically reduce the political function of the security narrative. A rational strategy should therefore seek not the perpetuation of the neighbor’s weakness, but its gradual stabilization under conditions compatible with Dominican security.

The responsibility of political leadership therefore becomes decisive. The objective is not to demand that leaders minimize real dangers or abandon a firm migration policy. It is to ask them to preserve the categories that make effective public action possible: distinguishing the person from the behavior, the migrant from the criminal, the Haitian state from its population, institutional crisis from Haitian national identity, and border protection from the construction of a collective enemy. This distinction does not weaken security. On the contrary, it gives security a more rational foundation.

THE DNA OF HISPANIOLA: WHAT SCIENCE ACTUALLY SAYS

Genetics is probably the field in which methodological caution is most indispensable. Genomic data can illuminate migration, population mixing, the demographic effects of colonization and certain historical continuities. They cannot, however, determine what a nation is, much less define the value, culture or political legitimacy of a population. Using DNA to establish a hierarchy between Haitians and Dominicans would amount to diverting population science from its actual purpose.

Research devoted to populations in the Dominican Republic demonstrates precisely why such caution is necessary. A study published in 2024 in Pharmaceutics, involving 178 Dominican individuals genotyped to estimate genomic ancestry, obtained an average of 23.8% European ancestry, 42.6% Amerindian ancestry and 33.6% African ancestry within that sample. But these figures must in no way be transformed into a genetic portrait of the entire Dominican population. The sample studied does not mechanically represent the country’s full demographic diversity, and the reference populations used to estimate ancestral components also influence the results.

Another recent study devoted to an urban Dominican cohort produces a markedly different distribution, with an estimated average of 51.6% European ancestry, 39.5% African ancestry and 8.9% Amerindian ancestry. This difference is not a scientific contradiction to be resolved by arbitrarily selecting the figure that best serves a political thesis. Rather, it recalls a fundamental rule of population genetics: an ancestry estimate depends on the sampled population, its size, its structure, the markers used, the reference populations and the statistical method employed.

It would therefore be scientifically incorrect to write that “the average Dominican” possesses a genetic composition determined once and for all. Individuals do not carry a national average; they carry particular genomes resulting from particular family histories. Ancestry proportions can vary considerably from one individual to another and from one region to another. The internal diversity of a national population is therefore just as important as the comparison between two national populations.

The study of paternal lineages provides another illustration of this complexity. Research involving 182 Dominican men from three localities identified 59% of lineages classified as North African or European, 38% as African and 3% as Amerindian. But these figures concern the Y chromosome, that is, a single direct genealogical line within an individual’s entire genetic heritage. They therefore do not represent the total genomic ancestry of these men, much less that of the entire Dominican population. The study primarily demonstrates an asymmetry between certain paternal and maternal lineages, a phenomenon that researchers interpret within the historical context of colonization, slavery and the social relations that shaped colonial society.

The distinction between the Y chromosome, mitochondrial DNA and autosomal ancestry is fundamental. The Y chromosome essentially follows a direct paternal lineage; mitochondrial DNA follows a direct maternal lineage; autosomal DNA, by contrast, represents the majority of the genome inherited from the entire set of recent ancestors. These three approaches therefore do not answer the same question. Combining them to produce a single national percentage would be scientifically misleading.

The available data nevertheless reveal something far more important than the search for a definitive figure: the societies of Hispaniola emerged from complex demographic histories in which Indigenous, African and European ancestries combined along different trajectories. Research on Dominican lineages shows, in particular, a strong presence of African lineages in mitochondrial DNA and a significant proportion of European or North African lineages in the Y chromosome, corresponding to a history of admixture strongly shaped by the power relations of the colonial period.

Genetics therefore does not say that Haitians and Dominicans are “the same.” Nor does it say that they are biologically separated by a border corresponding to the current political boundary. It tells a more complex story: that of Caribbean populations whose trajectories were differentiated by colonization, slavery, migration, social structures and national constructions, while still sharing elements of an older regional demographic history.

This is precisely why the claim that the two peoples have “more than 50% of the same DNA” should be rejected. All human beings share the overwhelming majority of their genetic sequence. The scientifically relevant question is therefore not to search for a spectacular percentage intended to prove proximity or separation, but to study variations in ancestry frequencies, genealogical lineages, migration flows and demographic events that produced contemporary populations.

The scientific conclusion should remain simple: DNA can tell part of the story of Hispaniola, but it cannot write the national identity of its peoples in their place. A Dominican may have African, European and Indigenous ancestors; a Haitian may likewise emerge from a demographic history deeply shaped by Africa and by other historical contributions. These data do not erase language, culture, memory, institutions or the historical experiences that produced two distinct nations. They simply show that contemporary national categories are not natural biological categories.

This is where genetics becomes politically interesting, not because it allows us to decide who is what, but because it precisely prevents the simplifications to which identity debates may be tempted to resort. It reminds us that human history is older than borders, more complex than nationalisms and more diverse than narratives that seek to confine a population to a single origin. For Hispaniola, this scientific lesson carries a geopolitical significance: sovereignty can be separated; human histories, however, can never be entirely divided by a border.

TWO PEOPLES, ONE ECONOMIC INTERDEPENDENCE

The Hispaniolan border is not merely a line of sovereignty; it is also a living economic space, structured by exchanges that have survived political crises, periods of closure and diplomatic tensions. Trade between Haiti and the Dominican Republic rests on an elementary geographical reality: the two economies share a land border, complementary needs and commercial networks whose development has extended well beyond formal state mechanisms. Food products, construction materials, manufactured goods and consumer products move between the two territories through legal, informal or clandestine channels, while border communities have built over the decades economies whose survival depends precisely on this circulation. The border can slow these flows, control them or formalize them; it cannot eliminate the economic needs that generate them.

For the Dominican Republic, Haiti has long represented a significant commercial outlet. The Haitian market is an important destination for Dominican products from agriculture, agribusiness, light industry and construction. The U.S. government itself describes the Haitian economy as highly dependent on its trade relations with neighboring countries, foremost among them the Dominican Republic. This relationship creates an obvious asymmetry between the two economies, but asymmetry does not mean an absence of interdependence. It means rather that the two countries do not derive the same benefits from trade and do not bear the same costs when those exchanges are interrupted.

The 2023 border crisis provided a concrete demonstration of this reality. When Luis Abinader ordered the complete closure of the border in September 2023, the measure simultaneously affected land, maritime and air exchanges. The Dominican government had to rapidly establish mechanisms to absorb production intended for the Haitian market, particularly perishable goods. Days later, the Dominican Poultry Association estimated that the closure alone interrupted the export of approximately 30 million eggs per month, as well as significant volumes of chickens and poultry products. The phenomenon is revealing: even when a state considers border closure necessary for security reasons, producers, traders and transporters must immediately absorb the economic consequences of that decision.

This interdependence concerns more than goods. It also concerns labor. The presence of Haitian workers in the Dominican economy is longstanding and particularly important in certain sectors. Data compiled by the International Labour Organization show, in particular, a strong concentration of Haitian immigrants in agriculture and construction, as well as their presence in commerce and various services. This reality should neither be idealized nor demonized. Part of this workforce remains vulnerable, some employment relationships are informal and working conditions can be precarious. But this vulnerability does not negate the economic contribution of migrant labor. Rather, it reveals the existence of a transnational labor market whose rules both states have an interest in organizing more effectively.

The question then becomes one of formalization. A largely informal border economy reduces the ability of both states to collect the revenues to which they are entitled, weakens the traceability of goods and creates spaces conducive to fraud and criminal activity. Conversely, a better-administered border can transform part of this gray economy into formal, taxable and controllable activity. Security and trade are therefore not necessarily contradictory objectives. More efficient customs, digital procedures, risk-based controls and modern logistics infrastructure can simultaneously strengthen security and reduce the costs of legal trade.

This is precisely what gives particular significance to the project announced by Luis Abinader in February 2026. The Dominican president presented the creation of a network of dry ports and logistics centers in border provinces as a new pillar of development in the area, with the objective of organizing trade, strengthening formal exchanges with Haiti and mobilizing more than $300 million in private investment. The Dominican Presidency explicitly presented this infrastructure as an “economic wall” complementing the border wall designed for territorial security.

This presidential formulation reveals an important evolution in the doctrine. The same state that is physically reinforcing territorial separation simultaneously recognizes that it must organize the exchanges crossing that separation. The border is therefore no longer conceived solely as a barrier; it is beginning to be understood as economic infrastructure. This evolution is not an accidental contradiction. Rather, it reveals a fundamental reality: political separation can coexist with economic interdependence, provided that the latter is organized by institutions capable of distinguishing legal trade, informal activity and criminal networks.

This distinction is particularly important in the fight against trafficking. Weapons, narcotics, smuggled goods and illicit financial flows should not be equated with ordinary cross-border trade. They respond to different criminal logics and require different instruments. Combating them effectively requires precisely a border sufficiently organized to identify high-risk flows without turning all exchanges into suspect activity. Customs technology, information sharing, risk analysis and cooperation between administrations may here be more effective than a generalized closure approach.

The economic paradox of Hispaniola then becomes clear. The Dominican Republic can reduce certain forms of dependency, diversify its markets, develop automation and strengthen domestic production. It cannot, however, abolish geography. Haiti will remain its immediate neighbor, a potential market, a source of labor, a space of circulation and an unavoidable component of the island’s economic environment. The strategic question is therefore not how to eliminate this interdependence, but how to make it safer, more formal, more productive and more balanced.

HATRED AS AN ECONOMIC RISK

Hatred may appear to belong exclusively to the realm of morality or politics. Yet it possesses an economic dimension that national strategies often underestimate. When a society persistently constructs its neighbor as a collective threat, it increases the political cost of cooperation, reduces the predictability of trade and can transform every diplomatic crisis into a commercial shock. Economies do not function solely through infrastructure and capital; they also depend on trust, continuity of rules and the ability of actors to anticipate public decisions. When these conditions deteriorate, the cost can emerge even before a macroeconomic statistic is able to measure it.

The events of 2023 directly illustrate this mechanism. The border closure decided by the Dominican Republic had specific political and security objectives, but it also produced immediate economic consequences for producers dependent on the Haitian market. The Dominican state had to intervene to purchase perishable products that could no longer be marketed normally, while poultry producers acknowledged the interruption of significant exports to Haiti. This phenomenon recalls an elementary rule of economics: a sovereign decision may be entirely legitimate in its objective while simultaneously producing secondary costs for sectors dependent on the continuity of trade.

The labor market constitutes a second transmission channel. A more restrictive migration policy may respond to legitimate objectives of control and regularization, but its economic implementation must take into account the actual structure of labor demand. When certain sectors have long relied on a significant migrant workforce, a rapid reduction in that supply can lead to higher wage costs, accelerated mechanization or a reorganization of production. In some cases, this transformation may be beneficial in the long term if it stimulates productivity and formalization; in others, it may generate temporary pressures on costs and prices. The issue, therefore, is not to defend or condemn migrant labor in the abstract, but to measure precisely the effects of a sudden transformation of the labor market.

Security cooperation constitutes a third channel. Criminal networks do not respect administrative borders. An organization operating across several territories can exploit differences between judicial systems, police capabilities and customs procedures. A severely deteriorated bilateral relationship mechanically reduces opportunities for information sharing and operational coordination. Yet a truly secure border is not merely one that prevents an individual from entering; it is also one that enables both states to identify the networks organizing criminal flows, trace their financing and coordinate judicial responses.

The environment may be the clearest case of non-negotiable interdependence. Watersheds, rivers and ecosystems recognize no national borders. Degradation on one side can produce consequences on the other, while erosion, sedimentation, deforestation, water management and risks associated with extreme climate events can affect both societies simultaneously. In this area, the idea of absolute national self-sufficiency becomes physically impossible. No wall can prevent a watershed from functioning as a single system.

Public health follows the same logic. The cholera outbreak that began in Haiti in 2010 provides a powerful reminder that borders are not absolute epidemiological barriers. Cases were subsequently recorded in the Dominican Republic, and the World Health Organization documented the spread of the epidemic and its health consequences in both countries. The strategic lesson extends beyond cholera itself: epidemiological surveillance, early-warning systems, diagnostic capacity, vaccination and health coordination are areas in which cooperation does not weaken sovereignty. It increases its actual capacity for protection.

Tourism introduces another dimension, but mechanical reasoning must be avoided here. The Dominican Republic has a major tourism industry, and its attractiveness depends, among other factors, on stability, infrastructure, service quality and the country’s international image. A deterioration in international reputation can therefore become an economic risk, but it would be excessive to claim that a conflict with Haiti would automatically cause tourism to decline. The real risk is more diffuse: a sustained perception of regional instability, social tensions or discrimination can increase a country’s reputational cost and influence certain investment or travel decisions.

The economic paradox of Dominican power therefore becomes clearer. The more the Dominican Republic develops, the more dependent it becomes on a stable regional environment. An open economy integrated into international logistics chains, tourism, finance and regional trade has more to lose from a lasting deterioration of its neighborhood than an isolated economy. Power does not therefore necessarily reduce vulnerability; it can also relocate it. A richer and more connected Dominican Republic has an interest in a more predictable island environment, even as it simultaneously strengthens its protection mechanisms.

The conclusion is not that the Dominican Republic should abandon its security policy. It is precisely the opposite. The more a state seeks to secure its prosperity over the long term, the more it must distinguish the protection of its territory from the deliberate degradation of its regional environment. A policy of firmness can be compatible with a policy of cooperation. What becomes economically dangerous is when distrust ceases to be a temporary instrument for managing a crisis and becomes a permanent structure of the bilateral relationship.

Hatred therefore becomes an economic risk not because it mechanically produces a collapse in trade, but because it progressively destroys the institutional conditions for cooperation. It raises the cost of trust, reduces the political space for compromise and transforms normal interdependencies into suspected vulnerabilities. In the long term, such a dynamic can become costly precisely for the state that appears to be the best protected.

THE BORDER THAT PROTECTS AND THE BORDER THAT PRODUCES

The true alternative to absolute closure is not the absence of a border. It is a border that is smarter, more controlled, and more productive. An effective border must be able to distinguish between people, goods, and risks; it must slow down what threatens security while accelerating what belongs to legitimate commerce. This conception transforms the border from a simple mechanism of separation into a strategic infrastructure capable of combining sovereignty, security, trade, and development.

The first dimension is economic. Dry ports, logistics centers, wholesale markets, modernized customs facilities, and digital tracking systems can help formalize part of the trade that currently takes place through informal channels. The network of dry ports announced by Abinader in February 2026 moves precisely in this direction. The Dominican presidency presents these infrastructures as a means of organizing trade with Haiti, strengthening the border provinces, and creating a new logistics hub capable of attracting private investment. The concept is strategic because it implicitly recognizes that the border cannot be economically neutral: it must generate value if it is to contribute sustainably to the development of the territories it separates.

The second dimension is security. A modern border does not need to treat every movement as a threat. It must identify risks with greater precision. Biometric systems, surveillance technologies, customs data analysis, and information sharing can allow security resources to be concentrated on flows that genuinely present problems. The Dominican Republic has already begun moving in this direction by combining physical infrastructure with surveillance technologies. In 2023, the authorities had notably planned the introduction of biometric registration within border-control mechanisms and the creation of commercial corridors subject to enhanced controls. The preferred logic is therefore one of more precise control rather than indiscriminate closure.

The third dimension is health. Epidemiological surveillance systems, early-warning mechanisms, and the capacity to share health information rapidly constitute national security instruments just as much as migration controls do. An infectious disease does not require a visa to cross a border. Health cooperation therefore does not abolish sovereignty; it enables each state to protect its own population more effectively.

The fourth dimension is environmental. Hispaniola cannot be divided ecologically into two independent systems. The management of watersheds, forest protection, conservation of water resources, erosion prevention, waste reduction, and adaptation to extreme climate events require permanent mechanisms of coordination. In this area, refusing to cooperate does not constitute an additional assertion of sovereignty; it represents a reduction in the actual capacity of each of the two states to protect its own territory.

The fifth dimension is social. A productive border must also create legal economic activities for populations living nearby. Border regions cannot remain indefinitely trapped in survival economies dependent on political fluctuations. If logistics infrastructure, markets, financial services, transportation, and manufacturing activities are developed coherently, the border can become a space of investment rather than merely a space of surveillance. Such a transformation would be particularly important for Dominican territories located farthest from the country’s major economic centers, but it could also create incentives for the formalization of trade on the Haitian side.

International comparisons must nevertheless be approached with caution. Borders between European Union member states rest on institutional architectures that do not exist between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The United States–Mexico border also possesses economic, legal, and security characteristics that cannot be directly transposed to Hispaniola. These examples should therefore not be treated as models to copy; they simply demonstrate that a border can simultaneously perform a control function and become a major economic corridor when institutions effectively organize flows.

Hispaniola possesses the minimum conditions to develop a comparable logic, but at its own pace and according to its own constraints. This would require recognizing that security, trade, health, the environment, and development are not five policies unrelated to one another. They constitute five dimensions of the same island-wide problem. The Dominican Republic can strengthen its territorial control while developing mechanisms of cooperation with Haiti. It can combat irregular migration while legally organizing certain forms of economic mobility. It can fight trafficking while facilitating legitimate trade. It can protect its sovereignty while participating in the joint management of natural resources.

The border of tomorrow should therefore not be evaluated solely by the height of its wall or the number of people intercepted. It should be evaluated by its capacity to reduce crime, formalize trade, increase public revenues, protect populations, accelerate legitimate commerce, prevent health crises, and preserve natural resources. A truly strong border is not necessarily the one that separates the most; it is the one that controls most effectively what it must control and facilitates what it has an interest in facilitating.

This is probably where the true strategic alternative for Hispaniola lies. The Dominican Republic does not have to choose between sovereignty and interdependence, any more than it has to choose between security and development. It must build an architecture in which sovereignty provides the means to control the border, while interdependence provides the reasons to organize it intelligently. A wall can prevent certain crossings; it cannot by itself create a stable border economy. Technology can monitor flows; it cannot replace institutions. Closure can temporarily interrupt trade; it cannot eliminate geography.

The historic question for Hispaniola is therefore no longer how to make the border invisible. It is how to make it strong enough to protect two sovereign states without making it so hostile that it prevents two neighboring societies from surviving, trading, and managing together the realities they share.

HAITI: RESPONSIBILITIES, FAILURES, AND INTERDEPENDENCE

Rejecting the stigmatization of Haiti does not mean absolving Haitian decision-makers of responsibility. A serious analysis of the crisis must precisely avoid the two symmetrical simplifications that often dominate the international debate: portraying Haiti as a completely passive victim of its history or, conversely, reducing its collapse to an alleged inability of its population to build a state. Between these two caricatures lies a far more difficult reality: decades of institutional weakness, poor governance, corruption, the capture of public resources, repeated political crises, external interference, and the growing power of armed actors have progressively reduced the capacity of the Haitian state to perform its fundamental functions. Political responsibility therefore exists, and it concerns political leaders, economic and political networks, institutions that have tolerated or organized predatory practices, as well as armed groups that use violence to control territories and populations.

This responsibility must nevertheless not be confused with collective responsibility on the part of Haitian society. The Haitian state may be failing without the Haitian people themselves being defined by that failure. Millions of citizens continue to work, build businesses, teach, provide care, produce, and sustain communities under extraordinarily difficult conditions. They cannot be equated with the actors who have contributed to institutional collapse. This distinction is fundamental to preventing legitimate criticism of structures of power from becoming a condemnation of an entire population. It is also indispensable to understanding why Haiti’s reconstruction can never be reduced to a security operation.

The current crisis nevertheless has a security dimension that cannot be minimized. The rise of armed groups, the weakening of public forces, the multiplication of internal displacement, and the deterioration of access to essential services have transformed a political crisis into a multidimensional crisis. When a state can no longer sustainably exercise its sovereign functions across a significant portion of its territory, the consequences inevitably extend beyond its borders. Population displacement, trafficking, transnational criminal activity, disruptions to trade, and health or environmental risks affect neighboring countries. For the Dominican Republic, this reality is particularly immediate because of the land border and the depth of human and economic exchanges between the two societies.

Santo Domingo therefore has entirely legitimate reasons to regard the Haitian crisis as a matter of national security. Territorial control, the fight against trafficking, the management of irregular migration, and the protection of populations fall within the ordinary responsibilities of a sovereign state. No Dominican government could indefinitely abandon these functions in the name of an abstract conception of island solidarity. A Dominican Republic that failed to protect its own population would be no more capable of helping its neighbor.

But this legitimacy has an essential strategic limit: the Dominican Republic cannot resolve the Haitian crisis on its own. It possesses neither the financial resources, nor the institutional capacity, nor the political legitimacy required to rebuild the neighboring state. More importantly, any attempt to permanently substitute Dominican management for Haitian sovereignty would be politically explosive and historically counterproductive. The history of the island provides sufficient evidence of the dangers of projects of domination for contemporary cooperation to be based on the sovereignty of both states rather than on the tutelage of one over the other.

This is where Santo Domingo’s strategic paradox emerges. The Dominican Republic cannot replace Haiti, but neither can it become independent of the consequences of Haiti’s collapse. It can temporarily close its border, strengthen controls, deport people in irregular situations in accordance with its laws, and increase its military capabilities. It cannot, however, move Haiti somewhere else in the Caribbean. It can reduce certain risks; it cannot eliminate the structural causes of a crisis unfolding only a few kilometers from its territory.

This reality therefore requires a distinction between protection and indifference. Protecting the Dominican Republic does not mean that it must take responsibility for rebuilding Haiti. But it does mean that it has an objective interest in making such reconstruction possible. A Haitian state capable of controlling its territory, combating armed groups, securing its institutions, and organizing its economy represents, for the Dominican Republic, a more predictable neighbor than a territory permanently fragmented among armed actors and fragile institutions.

Cooperation must nevertheless be conceived realistically. It cannot rest on the idea that Santo Domingo is responsible for saving Haiti. It should instead focus on specific and mutual interests: border security, formal trade, the fight against trafficking, public health, the environment, infrastructure, and information. The Dominican Republic can contribute to these mechanisms without becoming the manager of the Haitian crisis. This distinction is essential because it makes it possible to move beyond a false choice between abandonment and intervention.

The international community also bears a particular responsibility. For several decades, external actors have devoted substantial resources to Haiti without succeeding in creating a durable institutional trajectory. The reasons for this failure are multiple and cannot be attributed to a single factor. Internal weaknesses have played a decisive role, but external interventions have sometimes suffered from a lack of continuity, insufficient coordination, contradictory objectives, or weak local ownership. State reconstruction cannot be imported in the form of a technical program. It must progressively be produced by Haitian institutions capable of recovering their legitimacy among their own population.

Santo Domingo’s dilemma can therefore be formulated with greater precision. How can the Dominican Republic protect itself without undertaking the reconstruction of Haiti in its place? How can it control the border without becoming the permanent guardian of a neighboring state in crisis? How can it defend Dominican prosperity without accepting the collapse of the other half of the island as a permanent reality? These questions have no simple military answer. They require a doctrine for managing interdependence.

EXTERNAL ACTORS: THE WEIGHT OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY

No strategic analysis of Hispaniola can be complete without examining the role of external actors. Haiti and the Dominican Republic are two sovereign states, but their strategic environment extends far beyond the Caribbean. The United States, Canada, France, the European Union, international financial institutions, the United Nations, the Organization of American States, and CARICOM all possess, to varying degrees, resources, diplomatic networks, and instruments of influence that directly affect the conditions in which the two states operate.

The United States occupies a particularly important position. Haiti’s geographic proximity to Florida, the importance of Caribbean migration, maritime security concerns, and American economic interests have repeatedly placed Haiti on Washington’s agenda. This relationship also possesses considerable historical depth. The American occupation from 1915 to 1934 profoundly shaped Haitian institutions and the country’s political memory, while subsequent American interventions and initiatives continued to influence Haiti’s political trajectory. But history does not allow the current crisis to be reduced to American responsibility. Haiti’s internal dynamics possess their own logic and their own actors, and any serious analysis must reject monocausal explanations.

U.S. migration policy adds another dimension. Decisions made in Washington concerning visas, asylum procedures, temporary programs, or deportations can alter population movements across the Caribbean as a whole. These policies therefore concern more than the United States and Haiti. They can place additional pressure on transit or destination countries, particularly when the closure of certain migration routes modifies the pathways used by populations on the move. The Dominican Republic thus finds itself within a regional migration architecture that it does not entirely control.

Canada occupies a different position. It has maintained important relations with Haiti for many years and participates in humanitarian assistance, development financing, and diplomatic initiatives aimed at facilitating a way out of the crisis. Its influence nevertheless remains constrained by a fundamental reality: no external partner possesses, on its own, the political means to rebuild the Haitian state. Canada can finance, support, sanction certain actors, or participate in diplomatic mechanisms; it cannot remotely produce the institutional legitimacy required for sustainable reconstruction.

France occupies an even more sensitive position because the Franco Haitian relationship remains deeply connected to the history of independence. In 1825, France imposed on Haiti an indemnity intended to compensate former French colonists following independence. This decision placed a considerable financial burden on the new Haitian state and remains at the center of historical and political debates concerning the responsibilities of the former colonial power. The question of restitution or reparations for this debt cannot be treated as a simple accounting matter; it belongs to the long historical memory of relations between Haiti and Western powers.

CARICOM represents another category of actor. As a regional organization, it possesses particular legitimacy to participate in mediation and stabilization efforts precisely because the Haitian crisis concerns the Caribbean as a whole. Its influence, however, differs from that of major powers. It rests more heavily on regional diplomacy, mediation, and consensus-building than on financial or military capacity. Its role can therefore be important in constructing a politically acceptable solution, but it cannot replace the resources required for security, humanitarian assistance, or institutional reconstruction.

The United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the Organization of American States also occupy distinct positions. They possess considerable resources within their respective fields, but their mandates are not interchangeable. The United Nations can contribute to international coordination and security; the World Bank can support infrastructure and development policies; the IMF primarily addresses macroeconomic balances and economic policy; the OAS possesses a regional political and institutional function. Their juxtaposition therefore does not automatically produce a coherent strategy.

This is precisely where one of the major problems of the international response lies. Over recent decades, Haiti has received numerous initiatives, missions, programs, and funding mechanisms, but the multiplication of actors does not guarantee coherence in their interventions. Humanitarian objectives may come into tension with security imperatives; economic programs may be designed without sufficient integration with political institutions; projects may depend on external financing without producing sustainable national capacity. The problem is therefore not simply the volume of aid. It is also the governance, continuity, coordination, and local ownership of that assistance.

For the Dominican Republic, this situation creates both a diplomatic opportunity and a constraint. Santo Domingo has a direct interest in ensuring that the international community understands that the Haitian crisis is not merely a humanitarian emergency to be managed in the short term. It is a regional problem involving security, migration, trade, the environment, and stability. The Dominican Republic can therefore legitimately call for more coherent international engagement while refusing to become the institutional substitute for the Haitian state.

This position nevertheless requires Santo Domingo to pursue sufficiently balanced diplomacy so as not to reduce its entire relationship with Haiti to a demand for external intervention. The Dominican Republic has its own economic and security interests, but it must also accept that other actors have theirs. Washington will primarily seek to manage migration and security consequences affecting its territory; Ottawa will pursue its diplomatic and humanitarian priorities; Paris will remain confronted with its historical legacy; CARICOM will seek to preserve a regional solution; and financial institutions will prioritize their respective mandates. These interests do not automatically coincide.

The true Dominican strategy should therefore be to transform this plurality of interests into an architecture of cooperation. Rather than waiting for external powers to solve Haiti, Santo Domingo could use its regional weight to advocate an approach based on three principles: collective security without a transfer of sovereignty, institutional development without permanent tutelage, and economic cooperation without erasing national differences. The Dominican Republic cannot act alone; nor can it depend entirely on decisions made in Washington, Ottawa, Paris, or Brussels.

Hispaniola thus stands at the intersection of two scales. Within the island, two states must learn to manage an interdependence that no wall can eliminate. Beyond the island, several powers must accept that their intervention cannot produce lasting stability without legitimate Haitian institutions and genuine participation by regional actors. The solution therefore lies neither in abandoning Haiti, nor in placing it under tutelage, nor in the Dominican Republic withdrawing from all regional responsibility. It lies in an architecture in which each actor assumes what it can genuinely do without claiming the authority to do what belongs to the sovereignty of the other.

THE CENTRAL PROBLEM: SECURING THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC WITHOUT DESTABILIZING HISPANIOLA

The security of Hispaniola cannot be understood as a succession of watertight compartments. Dominican security obviously has a national dimension that falls exclusively within the responsibility of the Dominican state: territorial control, border protection, the fight against trafficking, the maintenance of public order, and the defense of the population. But geographic proximity to Haiti adds several dimensions that cannot be addressed solely through military means. A sustainable strategy must therefore distinguish national security, human security, economic security, environmental security, health security, food security, and regional security, without confusing them, but also without artificially isolating them.

National security constitutes the first level. The Dominican Republic has both the right and the duty to control its territory. It must be able to identify people entering its territory, combat criminal networks, monitor illicit trafficking, and prevent organized violence from crossing its border. This function requires no ideological justification. It is part of the normal operation of a sovereign state. The real challenge is to make such control sufficiently precise to distinguish genuine threats from human movements associated with migration, trade, or ordinary social relations.

Human security constitutes the second level. A security policy that protects the state while simultaneously producing systematic violations of fundamental rights cannot be considered fully sustainable. The treatment of migrants, detention conditions, deportation procedures, access to documentation, and the protection of vulnerable people must therefore remain subject to the rule of law. Security does not lose its strength when it respects human dignity; it gains legitimacy. Conversely, when national origin becomes a determining factor in suspicion, there is a risk of transforming a policy of control into a policy of stigmatization.

Economic security constitutes the third level. A modern economy depends on the continuity of trade, the stability of supply chains, the availability of labor, and the predictability of rules. The abrupt closure of a border may be necessary in certain exceptional circumstances, but it always carries an economic cost. The strategic question is therefore how to reduce security risks without unnecessarily interrupting the legal flows that contribute to the prosperity of both countries. An intelligent border must be capable of slowing risk while accelerating legitimate trade.

Environmental security constitutes a fourth level and probably one of the most underestimated. The two states share watersheds, water resources, ecosystems, and climate-related risks. Environmental degradation in one part of the island can produce consequences in the other. Water, forests, soils, and coastal areas cannot be effectively protected through entirely national policies. Sovereignty remains national; the management of natural systems, however, must be coordinated.

Health security follows the same logic. Infectious diseases do not respect border posts, and health systems cannot be protected sustainably if authorities remain unaware of what is happening on the other side. Effective epidemiological surveillance therefore requires warning mechanisms, information sharing, and coordinated response capacity. Health cooperation is not a concession made to the other state. It is a direct instrument for protecting one’s own population.

Food security must also be incorporated into this architecture. Agricultural trade between the two countries responds to real consumption and production needs. A prolonged interruption of these flows can affect producers, traders, and consumers. The question is therefore not merely how many goods cross the border, but which goods, through which channels, under what health guarantees, and at what cost. The formalization of trade can thus become an instrument of food security as well as a fiscal instrument.

Finally, there is regional security, which constitutes the broadest level. A stable Dominican Republic cannot be completely isolated from a persistently unstable Haiti. Geographic proximity, trade, population movements, and environmental risks make such separation impossible. This does not mean that Santo Domingo should assume responsibility for Haiti’s political stability. It means that it must recognize that the gradual stabilization of its neighbor also serves its own national interest.

This conception leads to a fundamental idea: the best protection for the Dominican Republic is not necessarily the one that maximizes distance from Haiti; it is the one that reduces the risks produced by interdependence while preserving the benefits that interdependence can generate. A more secure border, more formalized trade, better-targeted police cooperation, shared health mechanisms, coordinated environmental management, and active regional diplomacy are not concessions to Haiti. They are instruments of Dominican security.

The political challenge is considerable because such a strategy requires resisting both extremes. On the one hand, it would be irresponsible to ask the Dominican Republic to absorb the consequences of Haiti’s collapse in the name of abstract solidarity. On the other, it would be equally unrealistic to believe that a wall, deportations, and reinforced surveillance can be sufficient to neutralize the consequences of a crisis unfolding on the same island.

Between these two illusions lies a third path: sovereignty protected through cooperation, rather than sovereignty opposed to cooperation. This distinction could become the foundation of a new Dominican border doctrine. A doctrine in which control would remain firm, but where firmness would be measured by the precision of the mechanisms rather than the harshness of the rhetoric; where the border would remain a line of sovereignty, but would also become an organized space for trade; where Haiti would be treated as a neighboring state in crisis, rather than as a human category intrinsically perceived as threatening.

It is under this condition that the Dominican Republic will be able to protect precisely what it seeks to preserve: its security, stability, growth, and identity. For genuine power is measured not only by the ability to close a door. It is also measured by the ability to understand why that door exists, what must be prevented from crossing it, and what, on the contrary, must be allowed to continue moving.

Hispaniola will never become a single state. It does not need to. Its future depends instead on the ability of two sovereign states to understand that a border can separate jurisdictions without completely separating destinies. The question is therefore not whether to eliminate the border, but to decide what it must protect, what it must regulate, and what it must allow to circulate.

BILATERAL DIALOGUE: PROOF THAT ABSOLUTE SEPARATION IS IMPOSSIBLE

Despite recurring crises, Haiti and the Dominican Republic have never ceased to maintain certain channels of dialogue, whether through diplomatic meetings, technical mechanisms, ministerial discussions, or arrangements devoted to trade, security, and border issues. These mechanisms often remain fragile, irregular, and dependent on the political context, but their very persistence constitutes a major strategic fact: the two states can strengthen their institutional separation, but they cannot organize an absolute separation of their interests. Geography, economic exchanges, population movements, environmental and health risks impose a minimum form of communication, even when political relations reach their highest level of tension.

Trade is probably the most resilient mechanism of dialogue. Businesses, traders, transport operators, producers, and consumers on both sides of the border have interests that do not disappear when governments confront one another. Crises may slow exchanges, alter their routes, or provoke temporary closures, but they do not eliminate the economic demand underlying them. This reality should lead both states to regard the formalization of trade not merely as a fiscal instrument, but as an instrument of stability. The more organized, transparent, and predictable exchanges become, the less space they leave for informal and criminal networks.

The gradual resumption of certain air links and the desire to restore mobility mechanisms are, in this respect, important signals. They demonstrate that a policy of reinforced control does not necessarily imply a policy of isolation. Even when a government adopts an especially firm position regarding the land border, it must continue to manage needs related to business, diplomacy, families, tourism, humanitarian assistance, and regional exchanges. The paradox is revealing: the more difficult relations become, the more necessary certain channels of communication become.

The areas in which such cooperation is unavoidable are numerous. Security requires information sharing on arms trafficking, narcotics, and transnational criminal networks. Trade requires coordinated customs procedures and appropriate infrastructure. Public health requires epidemiological surveillance capable of rapidly detecting risks on both sides of the border. The environment requires coordinated management of certain water resources, watersheds, and ecosystems. Natural disasters require warning and emergency-response mechanisms capable of operating independently of political tensions. Even transport, energy, and telecommunications infrastructure can become instruments of cooperation when both states agree to address cross-border problems through a technical rather than ideological framework.

This is why Hispaniola needs a genuine diplomacy of neighborhood. It must be neither romantic nor naïve. It does not consist in denying the historical, cultural, or political differences between the two nations. Nor does it imply unlimited border openness. It rests on a much simpler and more realistic idea: a state can firmly defend its interests while maintaining permanent mechanisms of communication with its neighbor. Cooperation is not an abandonment of sovereignty; it can, on the contrary, be a more effective means of protecting it.

Such diplomacy must above all be institutionalized. A bilateral relationship of such strategic importance cannot depend exclusively on presidential personalities, electoral crises, or emotional reactions triggered by a border incident. Permanent technical commissions, specialized working groups, crisis-management protocols, and regular consultation mechanisms would make it possible to preserve a minimum degree of continuity when political relations deteriorate. The maturity of a relationship between two states is not measured by the absence of disagreements, but by the ability of their institutions to manage those disagreements without shutting down every channel of communication.

Bilateral dialogue is therefore not a favor granted to the other side. It serves a national interest on both sides of the border. For Santo Domingo, it makes it possible to anticipate risks more effectively and defend its interests more efficiently. For Port-au-Prince, it preserves essential economic, diplomatic, and humanitarian channels. For border communities, it often represents the difference between an administered border and a border transformed into a zone of permanent confrontation.

Absolute separation is thus a strategic fiction. The two states may decide not to share institutions, migration policies, or economic models. They may strengthen their controls and firmly assert their national identities. They cannot, however, separate the hydrological systems, ecosystems, health risks, trade networks, and human dynamics that structure the island. The real challenge is therefore not to choose between separation and fusion, but to determine how two sovereign states can rationally organize an interdependence that neither can abolish.

2035: FOUR POSSIBLE FUTURES FOR HISPANIOLA

The 2035 horizon makes it possible to transform the current debate into an exercise in foresight. The objective is not to predict the island’s future, but to identify the trajectories that could result from the choices being made today. Two variables appear decisive: the degree of cooperation between the two states and the evolution of Haiti’s institutional capacity. Their combination produces four scenarios that are not predictions, but frameworks for assessing the possible consequences of current policies.

First scenario: the Fortress. Cooperation remains weak while the Haitian state remains deeply destabilized. The Dominican Republic considerably strengthens its border, expands its surveillance systems, and prioritizes deterrence. Legal exchanges are maintained when they serve immediate economic interests, but political and institutional cooperation remains minimal. This trajectory may produce short-term security benefits, but it carries a growing risk of polarization. The more the border becomes the principal instrument for managing the Haitian crisis, the more political pressure shifts toward increasingly restrictive control measures. The result could be a permanently fragmented island, characterized by tense coexistence and growing economic, diplomatic, and human costs.

Second scenario: pragmatic coexistence. The Haitian state remains fragile, but the two governments maintain regular mechanisms for dialogue and targeted cooperation. The border remains strictly controlled, but legal exchanges are facilitated, procedures are more formalized, and health, environmental, and security issues are addressed through permanent technical mechanisms. This scenario does not presuppose exceptional political trust. It rests simply on the recognition of mutual interests. It could represent the most realistic trajectory in the short and medium term precisely because it requires neither ideological convergence nor an immediate transformation of the two political systems.

Third scenario: constrained cooperation. The Haitian state experiences a major deterioration in its collapse, and the pressure placed on the Dominican Republic becomes so intense that Santo Domingo is forced to significantly increase its engagement. Such engagement could take security, humanitarian, economic, or logistical forms. The problem would then be one of limits. The more directly the Dominican Republic intervenes in managing the consequences of the Haitian crisis, the greater the risk that it will be accused of interference and the more likely it becomes to be drawn into a crisis over which it controls neither the actors nor the outcome. This trajectory would also carry considerable political risks for Haiti, because an excessive Dominican presence could fuel nationalist reactions and reinforce precisely the historical tensions that cooperation would seek to reduce.

Fourth scenario: the Productive Island. Cooperation reaches a high level while the Haitian state gradually regains sufficient institutional capacity to perform its fundamental functions. The two states remain fully sovereign and retain their national identities, but they develop permanent mechanisms for economic, security, health, and environmental cooperation. The border remains controlled, but it also becomes an organized corridor for legal trade. Border infrastructure is modernized, customs procedures are streamlined, exchanges are increasingly formalized, and security mechanisms become more precise. This scenario means neither political integration nor the erasure of national differences. It represents a mature management of interdependence.

The Productive Island is the most demanding scenario because it depends on two simultaneous transformations: the gradual reconstruction of Haitian institutional capacities and the evolution of Dominican policy toward a more sophisticated conception of security. It also requires a favorable international environment. But it possesses a decisive advantage: it does not seek to eliminate interdependence. It seeks to make that interdependence productive, predictable, and controllable.

The value of this prospective exercise lies precisely in demonstrating that current choices are not neutral. A policy focused exclusively on closure can produce a cumulative dynamic that becomes difficult to reverse. Conversely, poorly designed cooperation could expose the Dominican Republic to risks it is unable to manage. Between these two extremes therefore lies a gradual strategy based on distinguishing what falls strictly within national sovereignty from what necessarily requires bilateral coordination.

By 2035, the real question will probably not be whether the border has disappeared. It will not. The question will be whether that border has become a permanent line of confrontation or a strategic infrastructure capable of organizing the coexistence of two sovereign states.

THE ABINADER PARADOX

The policy of Luis Abinader contains a strategic contradiction that deserves to be examined without caricature. On the one hand, the Dominican president is responding to a genuine concern within public opinion and to an objective deterioration of the Haitian state. On the other hand, the Dominican Republic’s economic strength creates precisely the conditions that make a more sophisticated management of its regional environment necessary. The more stable, connected, and economically significant the Dominican Republic becomes, the more it has an interest in ensuring that its immediate neighbor remains predictable.

Protecting the national territory obviously remains the primary responsibility of any government. Border control, the fight against trafficking, and the management of irregular migration fall within Dominican sovereignty. But protection cannot be assessed solely through the number of controls carried out, the length of infrastructure constructed, or the number of deportations conducted. A security policy must also be judged by its indirect consequences: does it affect commercial relations? Does it strengthen or weaken cooperation against criminal networks? Does it genuinely reduce risks, or merely displace the flows? Does it contribute to regional stability, or does it increase polarization?

The same reasoning applies to national identity. The Dominican Republic possesses a distinct historical, linguistic, and cultural identity. That identity neither needs to be denied nor relativized in order to recognize Haiti’s own identity. A mature nation does not need to build its neighbor’s devaluation into the affirmation of its own existence. The problem begins when national identity is progressively defined in opposition to an external population, particularly when that population is presented as homogeneous and indiscriminately associated with crime, irregularity, or threat.

This distinction is essential. An irregular migrant is not necessarily a criminal. A Haitian is not a criminological category. A historical dispute does not constitute a justification for contemporary discrimination. Security, migration, nationality, origin, and identity are different realities that must remain legally and politically distinct.

The true Abinader paradox is therefore the following: the more successful he is in consolidating Dominican power, the more he must think of the relationship with Haiti as a matter of regional strategy rather than merely as a matter of border control. Power does not consist solely in having the ability to close a border. It consists in being able to control it with sufficient precision to prevent closure from becoming a substitute for a regional policy.

Abinader’s legacy will therefore be assessed far beyond his immediate security record. History will also remember how his government defined the relationship between Dominican identity and its Haitian neighbor. Will it have helped build a border capable of providing protection without dehumanizing? Will it have succeeded in distinguishing criminal threats from national origin? Will it have transformed the border into an instrument of economic power and regional stability? Or will it have contributed to establishing a logic in which the Haitian presence gradually becomes the permanent framework through which Dominican policy defines itself?

This is where the real historical test lies. A border can be strengthened without becoming an instrument of hatred. An identity can be affirmed without manufacturing an enemy. Sovereignty can be defended without transforming interdependence into permanent psychological warfare.

A NEW DOCTRINE FOR HISPANIOLA

The island’s future therefore requires a doctrine that moves beyond the simplistic opposition between openness and closure. This doctrine should rest on six complementary principles.

The first is the principle of reciprocal sovereignty. Haiti and the Dominican Republic are two sovereign states. Cooperation can be sustainable only if it is explicitly grounded in recognition of this reality. Neither country should seek to impose its political, institutional, or cultural model on the other.

The second principle is that of interdependent security. The Dominican Republic must be able to protect its territory and its population, but it must also recognize that some of the risks it faces are produced by conditions existing on the other side of the border. Cooperation therefore does not replace national security; it becomes a strategic complement to it.

The third principle is structured economic cooperation. Cross-border trade should gradually move from informality toward channels that are more controlled, taxed, and secure. Logistics infrastructure, modern customs facilities, organized border markets, and formal payment mechanisms can transform an occasionally chaotic interdependence into an economic advantage.

The fourth principle concerns the joint management of cross-border risks. Water, ecosystems, diseases, natural disasters, certain forms of trafficking, and the effects of climate change cannot be effectively addressed through completely separate policies. Sovereignty remains national; risk prevention should become cooperative.

The fifth principle is permanent diplomacy. Relations between the two countries should not depend exclusively on the presidents in office. Permanent bilateral institutions must be able to continue working even when political relations deteriorate. It is precisely when political dialogue becomes difficult that technical mechanisms become most necessary.

The sixth principle is that of the productive and secure border. A modern border should be neither an uncontrolled opening nor an absolute wall. It should identify, filter, secure, formalize, and facilitate. It should prevent trafficking while accelerating legal trade. It should protect populations while allowing authorized mobility. It should generate revenue, information, and security.

This doctrine does not imply the disappearance of the border. On the contrary, it assumes that the border must be sufficiently well managed to become an instrument of public policy rather than a permanent symbol of confrontation. Sovereignty is not weakened when two states cooperate on problems they cannot solve separately. It is weakened when the inability to cooperate allows shared problems to become uncontrollable.

THE HISTORICAL CHOICE

Hispaniola therefore faces a choice that extends far beyond the mandate of a president or the duration of a political crisis. Three principal trajectories can be distinguished. The first consists of pursuing ever greater separation, on the assumption that Dominican security requires maximum distance from Haiti. This path possesses an immediate political logic: it responds to fear, reassures part of the public, and gives the government the image of an authority that controls its borders. But its strategic effectiveness depends on an assumption that is difficult to sustain over the long term: that a state can permanently neutralize the consequences of a crisis unfolding on the same island.

The second trajectory is that of pragmatic coexistence. It accepts the difference between the two nations, maintains strict border controls, and fully recognizes the sovereignty of each state, while refusing to transform that difference into permanent hostility. Dialogue becomes institutional, legal trade is protected, technical cooperation is maintained, and common risks are managed through specific mechanisms. This path does not require the two societies to love one another. It requires them to understand that they have an interest in preventing their disagreements from becoming destructive.

The third trajectory is more ambitious: transforming interdependence into regional power. This does not mean that the Dominican Republic should control Haiti, still less impose a solution upon it. It means conceiving Dominican power as the capacity to organize its strategic environment. A stronger economy, a more intelligent border, more effective infrastructure, a more active regional diplomacy, and stronger cooperation mechanisms would allow Santo Domingo to reduce its vulnerabilities without turning Haiti into a permanent enemy.

This third path is also the most difficult. It requires patience, institutions, professional diplomacy, and the political capacity to resist the immediate benefits of polarization. It also requires Haitian leaders to assume their own responsibilities and the international community to stop treating the Haitian crisis as a succession of emergencies without a long-term strategy. No actor can demand from another what it refuses to assume itself. The true historical choice facing Hispaniola is therefore not between open and closed borders, between nationalism and cosmopolitanism, or between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. It is between different ways of managing a geographic reality that will not change. Separation can be organized. Interdependence cannot be eliminated.

By 2035, the decisive question will therefore be less about the border itself than about the strategic maturity of the two states. Will they be capable of distinguishing sovereignty from isolation? Security from stigmatization? National identity from identity-based opposition? Migration control from dehumanization? Cooperation from dependence? The answer will determine far more than the relationship between Port-au-Prince and Santo Domingo. It will determine Hispaniola’s ability to transform a historically conflictual geography into a space of stability.

The island does not need to become one country in order to become a coherent strategic space. It needs two states sufficiently secure in their own identities that they no longer regard the existence of the other as an existential threat. And perhaps this is the true paradox of Hispaniola: the border can separate states, but it cannot completely separate their destinies.

AN ISLAND CANNOT BE DIVIDED BY A WALL

Let us return to the paradox running through this entire analysis. Haiti and the Dominican Republic constitute neither one people, nor one nation, nor one culture, nor one state. Their historical trajectories, languages, institutions, nation-building processes, and political experiences are profoundly distinct. This distinction must be acknowledged without ambiguity, because no sustainable cooperation can be based on the denial of national identities. Yet these two states share the same island, a deeply interconnected Caribbean history, partially shared demographic legacies, interdependent natural resources, ecological systems that ignore administrative borders, substantial economic exchanges, and a geography from which no national policy can completely escape.

It is precisely this reality that requires moving beyond an exclusively defensive conception of the border. The Dominican Republic possesses the sovereign right to control its territory, determine its migration policy, combat trafficking, and protect its population. Haiti possesses the same right to sovereignty, security, and national dignity. None of these principles is incompatible with cooperation. On the contrary, their articulation is probably the only way to prevent sovereignty from gradually becoming confused with isolation and security from being reduced to the physical construction of an increasingly rigid separation.

The wall can slow certain movements. It can make certain crossings more difficult. It can become one instrument among others in a broader control policy. But it can neither alter geography, nor interrupt economic dynamics, nor separate watersheds, nor prevent health risks from circulating, nor eliminate commercial relations, nor erase historical legacies. Above all, it cannot by itself produce political stability on the island. Border infrastructure can manage a consequence; it cannot resolve the underlying cause of a regional crisis.

This is where the strategic limitation of any policy based almost exclusively on separation becomes apparent. Dominican security can be strengthened through effective border control, but it cannot be durably guaranteed through distance alone. As long as the Haitian state remains institutionally fragile, as long as criminal networks possess spaces in which to operate, as long as border economies remain largely informal, and as long as environmental and health risks remain shared, the Dominican Republic will remain exposed to the consequences of the Haitian situation. Power therefore consists not only in protecting oneself from the effects of a crisis; it also consists in developing the capacity to manage the strategic environment in which that crisis occurs.

This is why interdependence should no longer be regarded solely as a vulnerability. It can become an instrument of power, provided that it is organized. A better-controlled border can simultaneously be a more productive border. Modern customs mechanisms can reduce trafficking while increasing legal trade. Coordinated health systems can protect both populations. Joint management of certain natural resources can reduce environmental risks. Permanent dialogue mechanisms can allow both governments to resolve crises before they become confrontations. Cooperation therefore does not erase the border; it can give the border a more intelligent function.

The fundamental challenge for Hispaniola is therefore not to eliminate the differences between the two societies. It is to organize their coexistence without transforming their differences into permanent antagonism. The Dominican Republic does not need to renounce its identity in order to cooperate with Haiti. Haiti does not need to renounce its sovereignty in order to recognize its neighbor’s security concerns. Political maturity consists precisely in understanding that a sufficiently secure national identity can acknowledge the existence of another without needing to transform it into an existential threat.

The real border to avoid is therefore not merely the one separating two territories. It is the one that progressively transforms an administrative border into a psychological border, and then a psychological border into identity-based opposition. Once this transformation takes hold, politics ceases to respond solely to real problems and begins to produce its own perceptions of threat. Fear feeds mistrust, mistrust reduces dialogue, the absence of dialogue increases incidents, and those incidents can then be used to justify further measures of closure. Such a dynamic can become self-perpetuating.

The historical challenge is precisely to interrupt this mechanism before it becomes structural. Sovereignty does not need hatred to be strong. Security does not need dehumanization to be effective. And a border does not need to become a psychological wall in order to be fully controlled.

Hispaniola will remain politically divided. It will remain composed of two sovereign states. It will retain two national identities, two political traditions, and two distinct historical trajectories. But it will also remain a single geographic reality. The question of the twenty-first century is therefore no longer how to abolish this contradiction, but how to govern it.

THE CPGNNews PERSPECTIVE

Hispaniola does not ask its two peoples to become one people. Nor does it ask its two states to abandon their borders, languages, memories, or sovereignties. It asks something more difficult: that they learn to live with a reality that no wall can alter. Two nations can be profoundly different and yet share the same ecological space, the same climate risks, indispensable economic exchanges, longstanding human movements, and a history that continues to produce consequences on both sides of the border.

This is where the true test of Luis Abinader may lie. Securing the Dominican Republic is his right and his duty. Defending its territory, controlling its borders, combating trafficking, and responding to the concerns of its population constitute neither wrongdoing nor weakness. A nation that does not protect its citizens abandons one of the state’s most fundamental responsibilities. But a country’s power is not measured solely by its ability to close a border. It is also measured by its ability to prevent fear from determining its vision of the future.

The Dominican Republic is today one of the Caribbean’s most dynamic economies. It possesses considerable advantages, an exceptional geographic position, expanding infrastructure, a powerful tourism sector, and regional influence that continues to grow. This rise in power creates a new responsibility. The stronger a state becomes, the less it should need to turn its neighbor into a permanent enemy in order to reaffirm its own identity. True security is not security that lives in fear of the other; it is security grounded in sufficient confidence, institutions, and capabilities to manage risks without losing perspective.

This is also why Hispaniola’s future cannot be conceived solely from its capitals. It is being shaped in border towns, markets, ports, agricultural communities, hospitals, watersheds, families separated by a political line, and businesses whose supply chains often disregard national passions. The border is a legal reality. It is also a human reality. A sustainable policy must be capable of looking at both realities simultaneously.

Haiti, for its part, cannot ask the Dominican Republic to bear alone the consequences of its own collapse. Haitian responsibilities are real. Political failures, corruption, armed violence, institutional weakness, and the inability to rebuild a functioning state have produced a crisis whose consequences now extend far beyond Haiti’s borders. Recognizing this reality does not mean abandoning Haiti; it means refusing to deprive Haiti of the historical responsibility for rebuilding itself.

But recognizing Haitian responsibility does not mean accepting that an entire population be transformed into a threat. A state can be in crisis without its people becoming an enemy. A border can be controlled without human dignity ceasing to exist at the point of crossing. A nation can defend its identity without needing to diminish that of its neighbor.

Perhaps this is where the Caribbean can offer the world another conception of the border. A border does not have to be a place where two fears confront each other. It can be a place where two sovereignties meet, where exchanges are controlled, trafficking is combated, people are protected, natural resources are managed, and crises can be anticipated. A modern border does not necessarily have to become less sovereign in order to become more humane. It must be sufficiently intelligent to be both.

The Dominican Republic’s true choice is therefore not between openness and closure, between weakness and firmness, or between Haiti and itself. The true choice concerns the conception of power it wishes to carry into the next generation. A power that constantly protects itself against its environment may become prosperous while remaining imprisoned by its own fears. A power that manages its environment without seeking to dominate it can transform its geographic position into a lasting strategic advantage.

And this is where the perspective must ultimately move beyond Abinader himself. Presidents come and go. Borders remain. Generations change. Economies transform. But Hispaniola will remain there, with its two states, its two national identities, its wounds, its resources, its contradictions, and its possibilities. The historical question will therefore not be merely whether Abinader succeeded in building a stronger border. It will be what that border produced behind it.

Will it have produced greater security, prosperity, dignity, and stability? Or will it gradually have established in the collective consciousness a separation so profound that the two societies will no longer be able to distinguish legitimate protection from fear of the other?

CPGNNews chooses to examine this question without naivety and without hostility. From the Caribbean, we reject the idea that the only alternative is to choose between sovereignty and humanity. A nation can be firm without being hateful. It can be sovereign without being closed to dialogue. It can defend its borders without abandoning reason. And it can become powerful without needing a neighbor to remain weak in order to measure its own strength.

Hispaniola does not need its two peoples to love one another. It needs them to understand that their futures will never be completely independent of each other. Respect does not require the erasure of differences. Cooperation does not require the disappearance of sovereignty. And peace does not require forgetting history.

It requires only enough lucidity not to allow the wounds of the past to determine the future on their own.

Perhaps this, ultimately, is the true test for Abinader. Not how far a president can build a wall, but how far a powerful state can go without allowing that wall to become a border within the collective consciousness.

METHODOLOGICAL NOTE

This dossier on Luis Abinader, the Dominican Republic, and the future of Hispaniola has been conceived as a long term strategic analysis, rather than as a simple commentary on migration policy or on the relationship between Santo Domingo and Port au Prince. Understanding Dominican choices in response to the Haitian crisis requires placing the border question within a much broader framework in which national security, migration, the economy, demography, sovereignty, history, national identities, trade, the environment, public health, diplomacy, and power relations in the Caribbean intersect. The objective is therefore neither to systematically legitimize the Dominican government’s policies nor to condemn them in principle, but to understand the constraints to which it is responding, the choices it is making, and the possible consequences of those choices for both societies.

Particular attention has been paid to distinguishing between established facts, political statements, government objectives, social perceptions, and analytical interpretations. This distinction is indispensable in a dossier devoted to such a sensitive subject. A presidential statement does not necessarily constitute public policy in its full scope. An announced measure is not always implemented uniformly. A perception widely shared within a society does not, by itself, constitute factual evidence. Likewise, a possible consequence should not be presented as an established outcome. The dossier therefore seeks to maintain as rigorous a separation as possible between what is documented, what can reasonably be inferred from observed trends, and what remains a strategic hypothesis.

The analysis is based on the cross examination of institutional, statistical, diplomatic, economic, scientific, and journalistic sources from the Dominican Republic, Haiti, the Caribbean, and international organizations. Dominican public policies have been examined through official communications and data available from the relevant institutions, while issues relating to Haiti have been placed within the context of the institutional, security, economic, and humanitarian crisis affecting the country. Data relating to trade, migration, investment, security, health, the environment, and bilateral relations have, where necessary, been compared across several categories of sources in order to prevent a single institutional or political narrative from determining the interpretation on its own.

The border question has been examined as a system, rather than as a simple line separating two territories. The wall, checkpoints, surveillance systems, visa policies, deportations, cross border markets, and transportation infrastructure constitute only the visible part of a much more complex reality. Behind the physical border are populations that trade, work, and move for family or economic reasons, but also criminal networks, financial flows, trafficking networks, and vulnerabilities that can simultaneously affect both states. This approach makes it possible to examine the border through its different functions: security border, migration border, economic border, health border, environmental border, and diplomatic border.

The relationship between migration and security has received particular attention in order to avoid conflating phenomena that are neither legally nor sociologically equivalent. Irregular migration, cross border crime, arms trafficking, drug trafficking, human trafficking, and the institutional collapse of Haiti may interact, but they do not constitute one and the same reality. Haitians living or working in the Dominican Republic cannot, either, be collectively equated with criminal networks operating in the region. This distinction is essential for maintaining a rigorous security analysis without turning an entire population into a category of threat.

The study also gives specific attention to history and identity formation. Hispaniola carries an exceptionally complex colonial, postcolonial, and national history, in which the trajectories of Haiti and the Dominican Republic developed simultaneously through proximity and differentiation. The two states possess distinct languages, institutions, political traditions, historical narratives, and national identities. Recognizing this difference is a prerequisite for any serious analysis. But national distinction should not lead to viewing the two societies as biologically or historically foreign to one another. National identity is a historical, cultural, political, and institutional construction that cannot be reduced to genetic ancestry.

For this reason, the section devoted to genetics follows particularly strict methodological precautions. Genomic studies can shed light on certain demographic trajectories on the island and identify Indigenous, African, and European ancestries present, in varying proportions, among contemporary populations. They cannot, however, transform these ancestries into a biological definition of nations. Results can vary considerably according to samples, regions studied, reference populations, genetic markers, and statistical methods. The dossier will therefore present no particular estimate as a definitive “national genetic composition” and will not use the misleading formulation that Haitians and Dominicans possess “more than 50% of the same DNA.” The formulation adopted will instead refer to demographic continuity and partially shared ancestries within a shared island history, without confusing genetics, national identity, and culture.

The economy constitutes another essential level of analysis. The Dominican Haitian border is not merely a space of control; it is also a space of trade, employment, movement of goods, and reciprocal dependencies. Formal and informal exchanges, the needs of the Haitian market, the presence of Haitian workers in several sectors of the Dominican economy, logistical infrastructure, and commercial networks demonstrate that political separation does not mean economic independence. The analysis therefore seeks to measure not only the immediate benefits of control policies, but also their potential effects on supply chains, the labor market, businesses, public finances, and Dominican competitiveness.

This economic dimension is deliberately examined in connection with security. A border policy can reduce certain risks while generating other costs. A prolonged closure can affect trade. Excessive restrictions on labor supply can alter costs in certain sectors. A severely deteriorated diplomatic relationship can complicate cooperation against trafficking networks. Conversely, a better organized border can simultaneously strengthen control, improve the traceability of trade, and encourage economic formalization. The dossier therefore examines the border not only as a defensive mechanism, but as a strategic infrastructure whose effects can simultaneously be security related, economic, and diplomatic.

Environmental and health dimensions have also been incorporated into the analysis because they highlight a fundamental reality: certain threats cannot be stopped by a physical border. Watersheds, ecosystems, water resources, climate risks, epidemics, and certain natural disasters affect both sides of the island. Cooperation in these areas does not constitute a challenge to national sovereignty; on the contrary, it represents a pragmatic way of protecting sovereignty against risks that disregard administrative boundaries.

The analysis of Luis Abinader’s policies is finally based on a distinction between legitimate security and the political construction of threat. A state’s right to control its territory, regulate immigration, and protect its population is not disputed. What must be examined is the manner in which these policies are formulated, implemented, and incorporated into a national narrative. A border can be firmly controlled without presenting an entire population as a threat. It can be technologically monitored without becoming a permanent symbol of hostility. It can protect sovereignty without transforming the neighboring state into an existential enemy.

Looking toward 2035, the dossier does not claim to predict Hispaniola’s future. Rather, it seeks to identify the trajectories that decisions made today could make more or less likely. The evolution of the Haitian state, Dominican migration policy, bilateral cooperation, trade, the security situation, international engagement, the Dominican Republic’s economic transformation, and identity perceptions are all variables capable of profoundly altering the island’s balance.

The central methodological question is therefore deliberately simple: how can the security of one state be analyzed without losing sight of the environment upon which that security depends? It is from this question that the dossier examines Abinader’s policies, the responsibilities of both states, the role of international actors, and the different possible trajectories for Hispaniola.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

All rights reserved. © CPGNNews, CaribPulse Global News Network.

Any reproduction, adaptation, translation, distribution, or use, in whole or in part, of this dossier must respect copyright and the corresponding attribution to CPGNNews. The references, data, documents, analyses, and scientific or institutional works used in this study remain subject to the rights and terms of use established by their respective authors, institutions, and originating organizations.

EDITORIAL OPENING

CPGNNews publishes this analysis at a moment when the Haitian Dominican question has moved far beyond the framework of a difficult bilateral relationship. It now concerns Caribbean security, regional migration, economic balances, international responsibilities, and, more profoundly, the way in which two neighboring societies can live with a border that separates them politically while connecting them daily through geography, economics, and history.

Our approach is not to ask the Dominican Republic to abandon its right to security. That right is real, legitimate, and inherent to sovereignty. Nor is it to ask Haiti to escape scrutiny of its own responsibilities. Corruption, institutional weakening, armed violence, governance failures, and the inability of the state to sustainably guarantee the security of its population are realities that must be examined with clarity. A serious analysis cannot build peace upon a denial of facts.

But clarity must operate in both directions. Recognizing Haiti’s collapse does not mean that every Haitian constitutes a threat. Recognizing the Dominican right to control its borders does not mean that every policy of closure will necessarily produce greater security. And recognizing the historical and cultural differences between the two nations does not require a narrative of superiority, biological opposition, or the permanent construction of an enemy.

It is precisely within this difficult space between sovereignty and interdependence, security and dignity, control and cooperation that CPGNNews situates its analysis.

The dossier therefore does not seek to choose one people against the other. It seeks to pose a more demanding question: what model of power does the Dominican Republic want to become in the face of the collapse of its neighbor? A power that protects itself primarily through separation? A power that accepts cautious and strictly controlled coexistence? Or a power sufficiently confident in itself to transform its geographical position, economic weight, and regional influence into instruments of stability?

This question directly concerns Luis Abinader, but it also goes beyond him. It concerns the future of the Dominican Republic, the future of Haiti, and, through them, the future of a Caribbean whose strategic depth the outside world still too often underestimates.

INSTITUTIONAL SOURCES AND REFERENCES

The sources used in this dossier include, among others, public institutions of the Dominican Republic and Haiti, their statistical agencies and relevant administrations, judicial and diplomatic institutions, Caribbean regional organizations, the United Nations and its specialized agencies, as well as relevant international financial and scientific institutions.

Particular attention has been given to data relating to migration, trade, border security, demography, health, the environment, investment, bilateral exchanges, and public policy. Scientific research concerning the genetics of Caribbean populations has been examined separately from political and identity based discourse in order to prevent the misuse of biological data in interpreting national identities.

Journalistic and specialized sources have been used primarily to document public statements, government decisions, recent developments, and events capable of rapidly altering relations between the two countries. Where several figures or interpretations existed, methodological priority was given, wherever possible, to primary sources, official statistical series, peer reviewed scientific research, and institutions possessing direct expertise on the subject concerned.

This diversity of sources responds to a simple requirement: no nation should be analyzed solely through the narrative it produces about itself, and no regional conflict should be reduced to the narrative of only one of its protagonists.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The preparation of this dossier owes much to the researchers, statisticians, academics, diplomats, economists, journalists, regional organizations, and international institutions that contribute, often under difficult conditions, to documenting the realities of Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and the Caribbean.

We also recognize the work of those who produce the data that makes it possible to move beyond impressions, slogans, and immediate perceptions and return to the facts. In a region where questions of identity, sovereignty, and memory can quickly become emotionally charged, this intellectual infrastructure is indispensable.

Particular recognition is due to Caribbean researchers who strive to examine the region from within, without abandoning international standards of research. Their work recalls a truth that is too often forgotten: the Caribbean is not merely an object of observation for great powers; it possesses its own voices, its own analyses, and its own capacity to think about its future.

CPGNNEWS EDITORIAL INFORMATION

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By the CPGNNews Editorial Desk | Global Perspective, A Caribbean Reading

August 2026

SCIENTIFIC APPENDIX

GENETIC DATA: WHAT THE STUDIES ACTUALLY ALLOW US TO SAY

The use of genetic data in the analysis of Hispaniola requires particular methodological caution. Available studies do not allow the definition of a single “genetic composition” for either the Dominican or Haitian population. Results vary according to the regions studied, the size and composition of samples, the reference populations used, the markers analyzed, and the statistical methods employed. Genetic data should therefore be used to reconstruct population histories and demographic trajectories, rather than to establish national or identity based categories.

A. Autosomal DNA

Autosomal DNA is the most relevant approach for studying the overall genetic ancestry of an individual population because it represents the genome inherited through both parental lines. Studies of Dominican populations reveal complex admixture involving European, African, and Indigenous American ancestries, but their proportions vary significantly according to individuals, regions, cohorts, and analytical methods.

It is therefore scientifically preferable to speak of variable ancestry profiles rather than assigning a single genetic average to the entire Dominican population. Different studies do not necessarily produce identical estimates, which is less a contradiction than a reminder of the importance of sampling and statistical models.

B. Mitochondrial DNA

Mitochondrial DNA allows researchers to study exclusively direct maternal transmission. It therefore provides a particular window into demographic history, but it does not represent the overall genetic ancestry of an individual.

Research conducted on contemporary Caribbean populations and ancient DNA shows the persistence of maternal lineages associated with pre Columbian Indigenous populations, as well as the considerable importance of lineages of African origin. These findings are particularly important for understanding the demographic consequences of colonization, migration, and the transatlantic slave trade.

A mitochondrial lineage should nevertheless never be interpreted as representing the entire ancestry of a population or individual.

C. Y Chromosome

The Y chromosome allows researchers to study a single line of transmission, connecting men through their direct paternal ancestry. A study of Dominican paternal lineages identified, in particular, a majority of lineages associated with European or North African ancestry, a substantial proportion of sub Saharan African lineages, and a much smaller proportion of Indigenous American lineages.

These results must be interpreted with extreme caution. They do not describe the entire Dominican genetic heritage and cannot be directly compared with autosomal ancestry estimates. The Y chromosome tells a particular story of male transmission that may reflect historical patterns of migration, colonization, and reproduction.

D. Ancient DNA and Pre Columbian Heritage

Paleogenomic research on pre Columbian Caribbean populations has profoundly transformed understanding of Hispaniola’s demographic history. It demonstrates that Indigenous populations associated with Taíno societies were not completely erased from the biological heritage of contemporary populations. Traces of Indigenous ancestry persist today, particularly in certain maternal lineages and contemporary populations.

This continuity obviously does not mean that contemporary societies are “Taíno” in a cultural, political, or national sense. It simply demonstrates that the historical disappearance of a civilization or population as a political entity does not necessarily mean the complete disappearance of its biological heritage.

E. Why Percentages Should Not Be Generalized

A genetic result obtained from a sample does not automatically constitute a representative measurement of an entire nation. Two studies can produce different estimates while remaining scientifically valid if they examine different populations or use different methodologies.

It would therefore be incorrect to state that “Dominicans are composed of X% Europeans, Y% Africans, and Z% Indigenous Americans” as though a fixed national genetic formula existed. A national population consists of individuals with different genealogical histories. Statistical averages can identify trends within defined samples; they do not transform those trends into absolute biological characteristics of a nation.

F. Methodological Limitations

Any interpretation of Hispaniola’s genetic data must take into account several limitations: sample size and representativeness, participants’ geographical origins, the selection of reference populations, the distinction between ancestry and cultural belonging, differences between autosomal DNA and uniparental markers, the statistical methods employed, and the rapid evolution of genomic databases.

These precautions are essential in the political context of the island. Genetics can contribute to reconstructing population history; it cannot determine the legitimacy of a nation, the value of a culture, the rights of a population, or the superiority of one group over another.

SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLE ADOPTED BY THE DOSSIER

No conclusion in this dossier should use the expression “more than 50% of the same DNA” as a scientific argument. This formulation is imprecise and may lead to erroneous interpretations.

The concept adopted is that of demographic continuity and partially shared ancestries, with proportions varying according to individuals, regions, lineages, and analytical methods.

This distinction is fundamental to the entire article: a partially shared demographic history does not mean a shared national identity; shared biological ancestry does not mean a shared culture; and national difference does not constitute an absolute biological difference.

DEFINITIVE EDITORIAL FRAMEWORK

THESIS

The Dominican Republic possesses a sovereign and legitimate right to secure its border, control its territory, and protect its population. However, the lasting transformation of Haiti or Haitians into a permanent category of identity based threat could become counterproductive to the very interests this policy seeks to protect, by progressively weakening the economic, diplomatic, human, and regional conditions upon which Dominican stability depends.

ANTITHESIS

Ignoring Haiti’s institutional and security collapse would be equally irresponsible. The Dominican Republic is directly exposed to the consequences of this crisis and cannot reasonably be expected to accept uncontrolled immigration, cross border trafficking, insecurity, or the absence of territorial control in the name of abstract solidarity. Protecting the Dominican population is a sovereign responsibility that cannot be relativized.

SYNTHESIS

The true strategy of Dominican power therefore lies neither in uncontrolled openness nor in permanent closure. It lies in building a sovereign, secure, intelligent, and productive border, accompanied by permanent neighborhood diplomacy, targeted cooperation on shared risks, and a regional policy capable of clearly distinguishing security, migration, crime, identity, and state responsibility.

This approach does not ask the Dominican Republic to surrender its sovereignty. On the contrary, it asks the country to conceive sovereignty as a capacity for action strong enough not to become a prisoner of fear of its neighbor.

FINAL QUESTION

The question posed to Luis Abinader therefore extends beyond his presidential term and takes on a historical dimension:

Will he build a Dominican Republic protected behind its border, or a Dominican Republic sufficiently powerful, sufficiently confident in itself, and sufficiently strategic to transform that border into an instrument of stability, security, and prosperity for the island as a whole?

Ultimately, part of Hispaniola’s future will be determined between these two conceptions of power.