Haiti's military-backed president declared a state of emergency Sunday, calling on a voodoo god and the nation's 7,500 military and police to repel any invasion.
"Our country is faced with extreme danger, denigrated, ridiculed, humiliated, strangled," Emile Jonassaint, 81, said in a televised address.
"Haiti must not die."
"I don't know what that's about," William Gray, special U.S. Haiti envoy, said on ABC's This Week With David Brinkley. "I doubt very seriously it has any impact."
Last week Jonassaint, installed as president in May, ordered the military to full alert, amid rumors of a U.S. invasion.
Jonassaint did not specify what measures would be taken but called on the voodoo god Agawou, the spirit of war, to protect Haitians.
The United States sees the Jonassaint government as a puppet to the junta that ousted democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1991.
"We regret that the illegal regime seems determined to inflict yet further suffering on the valiant Haitian people, who voted for democracy and instead are receiving demagoguery," U.S. Embassy spokesman Stanley Schrager said.
On Friday, the United States ordered commercial air service to Haiti to end June 25 and stopped all financial transactions.
The U.S. Embassy is withdrawing 100 of its 150 employees and dependents by Jan. 20.
The United States and Canada also asked their nationals to leave Haiti.
