President Donald Trump appears to be considering an end to U.S. recovery efforts for Puerto Rico amid his concerns over the territory’s mismanagement of finances and poor infrastructure.
Early Thursday morning, Trump sent out a series of tweets signaling that he wasn’t happy with the territory or the resources being spent there:
"Puerto Rico survived the Hurricanes, now a financial crisis looms largely of their own making." says Sharyl Attkisson. A total lack of…..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 12, 2017
…accountability say the Governor. Electric and all infrastructure was disaster before hurricanes. Congress to decide how much to spend….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 12, 2017
…We cannot keep FEMA, the Military & the First Responders, who have been amazing (under the most difficult circumstances) in P.R. forever!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 12, 2017
The tweets come as a large majority of the island is still without power three weeks after the island was hit by multiple hurricanes. Clean water is still hard to come by, and by all accounts, medical care is becoming vastly more difficult as supplies run low at hospitals.
The Washington Post notes that the tweets seem to contradict earlier promises by Vice President Mike Pence and the President himself.
In a visit to the island last week, Vice President Pence vowed that the administration will be with Puerto Rico “every step of the way.”
“I say to all of you gathered here today to the people of Puerto Rico: We are with you, we stand with you, and we will be with you every single day until Puerto Rico is restored bigger and better than ever before,” he said.
Trump himself made a similar promise, saying in a Sept. 29 speech, “We will not rest, however, until the people of Puerto Rico are safe.” He added, “These are great people. We want them to be safe and sound and secure. And we will be there every day until that happens.”
It would be ill-advised of Trump to follow through on the perceived threats here, as Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory and he would be seen as abandoning residents of his own nation as abandoning their fellow countrymen… which is not a good look for a president. At all.
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