Why didn't Trujillo or Balaguer invade Haiti and annex it as part of the Dominican Republic? Were they afraid of US intervention? (That would be the common sense answer)

interesting question

IMHO Balaguer was a better president than, say, mr Leonel & Hipolito. But still, he was pretty much "ambitionless". He kept DR from falling appart & the corruption from getting out of hand, but he didnt do much to move DR forward, let alone invade Haiti. His main concern was to write books and live a long happy life. And he owed too much to the US, due to their removal of any obstacles so he can win the elections after the war.

For Trujillo. The US owned the dominican customs from the 1920´s until the 1940´s, so DR was tied to its neck until then. Also, after the US released DR from economic slavery, "America" presented an outside image of being a good friend of DR, and consequently the DR was seen as an island that "owed" frienship and alliance to the US. Then you have the 2nd world war, by then I would guess DR´s economy was starting to improve a little. In the 1940´s Trujillo was busy enough making international trade agreements with european countries and the US, also trying to keep cool relations with the US (in spite of his sympathies for Germany). In the 1950´s came Duvalier (I understand he was friends with Trujillo), he crowned himself as "president for life", so there was seemingly nothing to worry about. By then the DR was relatively organized and prosper but very dependent on foreign trade. Trujillo´s relationship with the US finally deteriorated. Not long after, he was assassinated.

(luckily for DR) Trujillo was not interested in territorial expansion. He tried diplomacy instead. During his regime he struggled between keeping good relations with the US government while trying to free himself from their bondage.

Vain effort, because the US was involved in his assassination.

What incentive was there to invade Haiti in the first place? Besides, though the Dominican military under Trujillo was much better equipped and professional than it's Haitian counterpart by all accounts it's one thing to wage a ballistic war, a whole other thing to occupy a country. Again, there would have been no incentive for such folly.

On the part of Trujillo, yes, cuz' he always felt disatisfied with the limited domain that the country afforded for his unrelenting ambition, so, after he assumed power, he changed the conciliatory tone that was the basis of the dominican side during the final border limit negotiations that were currently in place. His hope was to push to the utmost the dominican claims to the old borders of colonial times, which included the Central Plateau (the current towns of Saint Michel de la Atalaye, Saint Raphael, Hinche, Las Cahobas and Thomasique, in short, 3,165km2) which the haitian state took control after their peasant population outnumbered the dominican population in those places. He knew that the haitian part would never give away on this point without a fight, so that would give him the perfect excuse to embark on a winner-takes-all war against them. Once the haitian military was wiped out, his expansionistic dreams would have been achieved.

After seeing that the US would interfered if things got out of hand, he changed his strategy to a defensive one of preventing the haitian state from getting more territory, which brought him to take the regrettable action that everyone knows about, literally "cleaning the house" in the process (1937).

Balaguer, though, would be more conservative, and would limit himself to making deals with the haitian elites, the latter providing his government with slave labour to fill the demand of the sugar barons and the state's own sugar refineries.

What incentive would there be to take over haiti????? Think about it????

To me the incentive would have been to form a one nation island. Throughout history there have been unprovoked invasions of neighboring lands or far away lands for nonsensical reasons. And then add to fact that Haiti occupied the Dominican Republic for 22 years while the DR never once occupied Haiti. I believe that Trujillo could have occupied and annexed Haiti but either he cared more about the economic future of the DR with regards to international trading relations or a he wasn't a bad enough dictator.

You incentive is to form a one nation island and just because Haiti once occupied the DR. Sorry dude, it makes not sense to me. Lets put it this way, Do you see any Financial or sociological incentive in that deal??? Because I definitely do not.

The international communty would've never allowed it and Trujillo wasn't stupid enough to commit himself to such an act. You see, mando, unlike the some Haitians Dominicans have never had pretensions about making the entire island their own. What our Republican history has demonstrated is a people who wish to be left alone by their neighbors and who have sought quite earnestly to build an identity quite distinctive from their neighbor. The only "unprovoked invasions" that have occured on Hispaniola have not come by way of DR and will never come from DR. We do not wish to merge with the neighboring state. Our history is a testament to that.

You're speaking in the context of today. I'm speaking in the context of the past. Financially, a one nation island makes a lot more sense to me than a two nation island given the size of DR and it's location. Dominican ports on the western side of the island would have definitely been very convenient and an economical plus. Sociologically, if you hate your neighbors enough history usually shows us that you get rid of them,absorb them or enslave them. The only thing I could see preventing that in this case is the US intervention or economic backlash via the international trading community.

Didn't Trujillo initially make efforts at charming the Haitian populace? I recall reading of rallies in PaP during his visits there in the same pompous style of his rallies in DR. When that failed there is also written history on Trujillo's political maneuvers to pull strings in Haiti and exercise some control there.

In any case for all the things he was there is one thing Trujillo was not: an absolute fool. At some point the absolute foolishness of a military unificatory enterprise became clear to him. From the replies i this thread the absolute foolishness of this idea is even evident to most members of this board.