Donald Trump campaigned in the Little Haiti neighborhood in Miami, Florida before his campaign rally Sunday evening, where he criticized his rival Hillary Clinton.
“Clinton was responsible for doing things a lot of the Haitian people are not happy with,” Trump stated, referencing Haiti’s earthquake. “Taxpayer dollars intended for Haiti and the earthquake victims went to a lot of the Clinton cronies.”
The Washington Post previously detailed the frustration from many Haitians with the Clintons:
The Clinton family’s charitable work in Haiti has been a mix of success, disappointment and controversy. As our Washington Post colleagues reported, some Clinton-backed projects didn’t come through, such as a $2 million housing expo for thousands of new housing units. The Government Accountability Office found poor planning and unsustainable outcomes for taxpayer-funded projects through USAID, such as a $170 million power plant and port for the Caracol Industrial Park, which the Clinton Foundation promoted.
Hillary Clinton’s younger brother had connections to a mining project in Haiti, raising suspicions among Haitians about the Clintons’ motives. Luxury hotel projects paid by the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund promised construction jobs — but for Haitians, it represented another disconnect between Clinton-backed efforts and the realities of one of the poorest countries struggling to rebuild after one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the Western Hemisphere.
The Republican nominee said he came to “listen and learn” from the Haitian community, according to the Miami Herald.
“The fact that he came here is everything for us as Haitians,” stated Monique DieuJuste, who doesn’t identify with any political party, but plans to vote for Trump. “Clintons haven’t done anything for us.”