GEOFF BENNETT: As we discuss new tariffs here in the U.S., a look now at how tariffs can make or break an economy, in this case, Haiti, where U.S. trade policies forced the government to bring down tariffs on foreign goods, which allowed American farmers to export their crops cheaply.

But that made it too expensive for Haitians to eat the food grown domestically.

Special correspondent Marcia Biggs and videographer Eric O'Connor have a look now at how this helped lead to decades of dependence on foreign aid.

MARCIA BIGGS: It seems like a world away from the typical scenes of violence that have ravaged Haiti's capital.

The northeast region of the country is home to some of Haiti's safest and most fertile lands.

But rice farmers here are fighting their own battle, struggling to compete with cheap imports.

EXCELLENT TASSIS, Haiti Rice Farmer (through translator): Miami rice has lowered our prices, which means we don't have any advantage.

MARCIA BIGGS: Miami rice is what the Haitians call imported American rice that has flooded their market since the 1980s, selling at a fraction of the price of rice grown in-country.

It all began in 1986, when the International Monetary Fund agreed to provide Haiti with huge loans in exchange for slashing tariffs on imported goods.

At the same time, the U.S. government began subsidizing American rice farmers, allowing them to export very cheap rice overseas.

Albert Pierre Joseph is the son of a rice farmer.

ALBERT PIERRE PAUL JOSEPH, Rice Farmer (through translator): I grew up in a family that lived off the land.

My father had 15 children, and it is with this land that he educated all 15 of us.

Since I was a child, my father produced a lot of rice and many traders used to come and buy rice from him.

The customs tariff that was reduced on rice throughout my childhood affected me a lot.

It meant that the amount of money my father used to make to meet our needs, well, he couldn't bring that in anymore.

MARCIA BIGGS: Like Albert's father, many farmers were unable to keep up and abandon the land.

BILL CLINTON, Former President of the United States: Today, we come together as friends.

MARCIA BIGGS: Under President Bill Clinton, another deal was made to lower tariffs on imports to Haiti from 35 percent to just 3 percent as part of a plan to help the country industrialize; 15 years later, Clinton famously apologized.

BILL CLINTON: Since 1981, the United States has followed a policy that we rich countries that produce a lot of food should sell it to poor countries and relieve them of the burden of producing their own food, so thank goodness they can leap directly into the industrial era.

It has not worked.

It's may have been good for some of my farmers in Arkansas, but it has not worked.

It was a mistake.

I did that.

I have to live every day with the consequences of the lost capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people, because of what I did, nobody else.

MARCIA BIGGS: Efforts to change the tariff policy failed, and cheap American rice continues to flow into the country to this day.

It's even changed the dietary habits of Haitians, who used to eat rice two to three times a week, but now consume it every day, an important detail when you consider a recent study by the University of Michigan found that there are levels of arsenic in American rice which may not affect health in small doses, but could lead to cancer and learning disabilities when consumed at high amounts.

How does it feel to know that you're consuming arsenic?

ALBERT PIERRE PAUL JOSEPH (through translator): I personally think today there must be a big effort made at the national and international levels, because we can't produce enough food to give to people.

And this food is making people sick.

MARCIA BIGGS: International aid groups try to support local farmers.

USAID helped Albert Pierre to build this mill for a collective of almost 1,000 farmers that wouldn't otherwise have the resources to mill and sell their crop.

And the collective sells much of its rice to the World Food Program, also recipient of USAID funds.

It's part of the World Food Program's overall strategy to source as much of its food locally as possible, and it relies significantly on cash-based assistance and development projects, but it also receives what is called in-kind assistance, bags of food grown in the U.S. and shipped overseas.

Thomas Deville is the head of WFP's School Feeding Program in Haiti, which receives much of its funding from USAID.

THOMAS DEVILLE, World Food Program: We would prefer to rely 100 percent of local production, for sure, but Haiti is not self-sufficient yet.

It takes time to get to a 100 percent local procurement.

It takes programs such as our resilience, the capacity-building programs.

It takes training with the local farmers and it takes intervention to improve irrigation systems.

And it takes a lot of work with the Ministry of Agriculture to make sure that we have ambitious policies to promote local production.

MARCIA BIGGS: Would it be more helpful to receive aid in that arena, rather than rice grown abroad?

THOMAS DEVILLE: We need both.

We can't ignore the more than five million Haitian people, so half of the country, that is facing high levels of food insecurity.

This is staggering levels.

MARCIA BIGGS: But even if they didn't need it, they are also required to bring in some food from the U.S.

The United States provides international food aid through two main programs, the first, the Emergency Food Security Program, allows more flexibility.

Implementers like the WFP can buy local food or provide, direct cash assistance to those in need.

But the other, Food for Peace, requires that 100 percent of aid be commodities produced in the United States, a caveat originally meant to help American farmers.

STEPHANIE MERCIER, Agricultural Policy Consultant: There were some years in the 1950s and '60s where food aid was the main outlet for which U.S. commodities were shipped for things like wheat, for example.

MARCIA BIGGS: Stephanie Mercier is a former chief economist for the Democratic staff of the Senate Agriculture Committee in charge of food aid legislation.

STEPHANIE MERCIER: But, today, U.S. food aid accounts for a little bit less than 2 percent of all total U.S. exports.

So it's a much smaller share of what's going on than it was at the beginning.

MARCIA BIGGS: So who's the biggest winner in the food aid industry?

STEPHANIE MERCIER: The biggest winner are the companies that own U.S.-flagships that carry U.S. commodities for food aid programs overseas.

MARCIA BIGGS: Mercier and her colleagues at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank, studied the effect of a 1950s law that requires half of all food aid be shipped on American-flagged vessels, which she says typically charge at least 60 percent more than foreign carriers.

STEPHANIE MERCIER: But our estimate overall was that that's at least $50 million a year that goes to these shipping companies that otherwise could be used for buying food to feed hungry people.

And that means that we feed one to two million fewer hungry people around the world every year.

MARCIA BIGGS: So where do you think that money is going?

STEPHANIE MERCIER: Into the company coffers of those U.S. shipping companies that we talked about.

MARCIA BIGGS: If you look again at Haiti, last year, USAID spent over $35 million food aid.

Of that, Mercier says $10.6 million was spent on shipping food to a country that has the ability to produce its own food.

Would you like to see the imports stop?

ALBERT PIERRE PAUL JOSEPH (through translator): If we block imports and this rice can't enter the country, Haitians will not be able to get enough to eat.

And, don't forget, we have an extremely poor population; 78 percent of Haitians are living on less than one U.S. dollar per day, which was why many of them buy imported rice, even though they know imported rice is not the best rice for them to eat.

MARCIA BIGGS: Just after his inauguration, President Trump paused all foreign aid for 90 days.

Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Oversight shut down USAID shortly thereafter, writing on the X platform that he spent the weekend feeding it into the wood chipper.

In-kind food shipments to organizations like the WFP are supposed to be protected by the emergency food assistance waiver.

But the abrupt dismantling of USAID has created chaos, putting at risk shipments of food not already in the pipeline.

Development projects like Albert Pierre's aren't covered by the waiver.

He says he was supposed to receive a transfer in funds from USAID by the end of January, but the money never came and the project was canceled.

He hasn't had to shut his mill just yet, but he's slowed down operations, and he's looking to other organizations for help.

He still believes that the way to make Haiti food independent is a delicate balance between increasing tariffs slowly so that American rice isn't dirt-cheap, while also investing in infrastructure and providing loans to local farmers.

ALBERT PIERRE PAUL JOSEPH (through translator): I believe we can solve this, but in order to solve it, we need to have a visionary state.

We need to have a private sector that is committed, a private sector that is productive and believes in national development.

MARCIA BIGGS: But with 85 percent of the capital controlled by gangs, the state is more concerned with daily survival than a vision for the future.

To fill that void, a grassroots effort to increase production came from local farmers.

They needed irrigation, so they dug a canal.

WIDELINE PIERRE, Spokesperson, Ouanaminthe Canal Management Committee (through translator): They got together, they took their destiny in hand, they came with shovels, pickaxes, with whatever they had, and they dug it by hand.

This was entirely the work of the Haitian population, a work that brought hope, that still brings hope for the Haitian people.

MARCIA BIGGS: The hope in the dignity, against all odds, of providing for themselves.

I have picked up that there's a real sense of pride among Haitians for their rice.

Is that true?

ALBERT PIERRE PAUL JOSEPH (through translator): Oh, yes, Oh, yes.

We have a sense of pride for the local rice.

Even if you hear people eating imported rice, they buy imported rice to eat during the week, but they buy the local rice to eat with the family on Sundays.

I think it's that sense of pride that should motivate us to invest a lot more in the rice industry, so we can produce more rice for the country and also to sell abroad.

MARCIA BIGGS: But in a state mostly overrun with violence, corruption and poverty, it's a vision reaching far into the future.

For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Marcia Biggs in Fort Liberte, Northeast Haiti.