Battered Puerto Rico desperately needs help

Imagine if the combined populations of New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont were suddenly hit by a power blackout and told it could take months to restore their electricity supply. Imagine if, at the same time, their roads, hospitals, phone lines and crops were largely obliterated, and almost half of them were left without clean drinking water. In such a scenario, a US president would respond with alacrity, said Dana Milbank in The Washington Post. Yet that is precisely the plight facing the 3.4 million Hispanic people on the American island of Puerto Rico as a result of Hurricane Maria – and they’ve received paltry attention. Donald Trump, so visible when Hurricane Harvey hit Texas, “all but ignored” the emergency in Puerto Rico until last week, devoting more time to attacking sportsmen for disrespecting the flag. Only now is he showing some urgency in helping the inhabitants of Puerto Rico, who are, lest we forget, US citizens.

Alas, Puerto Ricans are all too used to being treated unfairly by Washington, said Nelson A. Denis in The New York Times. The most glaring symbol of this is their continued subjection to the so-called Jones Act, which, since 1920, has specified that only American-flagged ships can carry goods from one US port to another. This prevents Puerto Rico from importing goods from cheaper, foreign sources. As a result, food costs twice as much on the island as in Florida, even though its per capita income is “about $19,000, close to half that of Mississippi”, the poorest US state. It is essentially a “captive market” for the US. Trump agreed last week to temporarily waive the Jones Act for Puerto Rico, but he should do so permanently. The law is “strangling the island’s economy”.

If only Puerto Rico were a US state, rather than just a US territory, things might be better, said Tyler Cowen on Bloomberg. The island would certainly enjoy more political clout. But even if its citizens voted conclusively to make that shift, it’s hard to see today’s Congress agreeing to absorb a Hispanic territory. It may happen unofficially anyway, said Marc Caputo on Politico. The mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico’s capital, reckons a third of the island’s residents may emigrate if life doesn’t improve. Many will go to Florida, where more than a million Puerto Ricans already live. That could transform the finely balanced politics of that state, given that Puerto Rican voters tend to vote Democrat. For his own sake, if nothing else, Trump should be doing all he can to rebuild Puerto Rico and keep people there.