To be fair to Trump, he wasn’t the first American President to adopt an anti-Haiti stance. In 1791, when news of the Haitian Revolution reached George Washington, he immediately sent aid to the white government there. America’s immediate concern was that the slave revolt in Haiti would spread to our shores. Literacy laws surged in popularity so that slaves would remain unaware of slave revolts.
Haiti was critical to France's economy. The San Jose State University Department of Economics did an outstanding study on what Haiti meant to France and Europe.