haiti: roots of the problem

When a disaster hits the poorest nation in the hemisphere, should we simply take up a collection and send aid, or would it be better to confront the reasons they are so poor?

Rick Steves:

We can blame Haiti’s squalor on voodoo, on its heritage of slavery, on corruption, on the fact that its main export is topsoil (in a treeless land, each rainstorm flushes precious soil into the sea), or on many other factors. But we must also look at American and European trade policies that help keep nations like Haiti underdeveloped—tariffs that help keep them "banana republics."