Citigroup's DEI initiatives has lasted for a shorter period of time than the company's invasion and occupation of Haiti. Beginning in the 1910s Citigroup, then known as the National City Bank of New York persuaded the US government to invade Haiti. Citigroup understood that by taking control of the country and of its central bank, it could make hundreds of millions of dollars by seizing the island nation's wealth for its own use. In 1915, Citigroup got its wish and the results were better than their wildest imagination could have conceived. Today, Citigroup stands as one of the largest bank in the US by assets. Are we to believe a few decades of appropriating hundred of millions of dollars from the Haitian people had nothing to do with it? Apparently so. Against this background it is no wonder the firm was never truly committed to DEI initiatives.

Key words: Citigroup, Haiti, DEI, corporate exploitation, Lehman Brothers, Volkswagen

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Articles and resources:

Banking Dive (2025), Citi tosses diversity goals, DEI label:

https://www.bankingdive.com/news/citi-tosses-diversity-goals-dei-label-fraser-trump/740627/

Banking on Solidarity (_____), Citibank and Haitians: A Violent History

https://www.bankingonsolidarity.org/citibank-and-haitians-a-violent-history/

Debt Justice Haiti (_____),: Free from slavery, not yet free from debt: https://debtjustice.org.uk/countries-in-crisis/haiti-free-slavery-not-yet-free-debt

Hatian Times (2024), Citibank, a longtime player in Haiti’s finances, leaves the country: https://haitiantimes.com/2024/07/11/citibank-haiti/

The Nation (1920), Self-Determining Haiti: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/35025/35025-h/35025-h.htm