US President Bill Clinton admitted to destroying Haiti’s agricultural sector, particularly its rice industry, in the early 2000s due to policies championed by the administration. According to Bertrhude Albert, CEO of a Haitian NGO called @P4Hglobal, small farmers’ rice harvests sat unsold in warehouses for months because they could not compete with US rice imports due to a lowered tariff. This policy forced more than 90,000 Haitian farming families out of business. Even today, Haiti, once known as the ‘Pearl of the Antilles’ for its rich, fertile soil, has not recovered.