Trump Wants to Cut Off Federal Relief Funds to Puerto Rico Despite
Post-Maria Devastation
Although it has been
more than a year since Hurricane Maria ravaged Puerto Rico, in parts of the
U.S. territory, "it's like the hurricane hit yesterday"—yet
President Donald Trump wants to cut off recovery money, according to Axios, "because
he claims, without evidence, that the island's government is using federal
disaster relief money to pay off debt."
The unfounded claims
about federal funds being misappropriated come from Trump's misreading of an
October Wall Street Journal article, multiple unnamed sources told Axios'
Jonathan Swan.
A day after the Journal report
was published, Trump falsely alleged on Twitter that the
island's "inept politicians are trying to use the massive and ridiculously
high amounts of hurricane/disaster funding" to pay off Puerto Rico's
substantial debt.
While "Puerto Rico is expecting billions in disaster recovery aid to help rebuild from last year's Hurricane Maria," as Bloomberg pointed out after the president's tweet, "neither the island's leaders—nor the board installed by the U.S. to oversee its budget—are proposing using disaster recovery aid to directly pay off bondholders or other lenders, who have been squaring off in federal court and stand to recover a portion of their investments once the government emerges from bankruptcy."
Some members of Congress and others, meanwhile, have called for canceling
the island's debt as a form of relief, noting that decades of U.S. policy that
produced the debt crisis, and the federally-mandated austerity plan crafted in
response to it is cruel, particularly after the devastation left by the
hurricane.
In addition to Trump's
desire to block future funding for recovery from a storm that killed thousands of Americans, sources also
revealed to Axios that the president wants "to claw back
some of the federal money Congress has already set aside for Puerto Rico's
disaster recovery."
Even though Trump
can't take back money Congress already has set aside for the commonwealth, he
could refuse to sign off on future spending bills, which could notably impact
the island's already sluggish and widely criticized recovery process.
So far, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) reports that more than $6 billion has been spent on Hurricane Maria relief, and the agency expects such spending to exceed $55 billion.
So far, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) reports that more than $6 billion has been spent on Hurricane Maria relief, and the agency expects such spending to exceed $55 billion.
In contrast to federal
Maria relief, when Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast in 2005,
"Congress approved $10 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency
four days later, and another $50 billion six days later," the New
York Times reported earlier this year. "The federal
government is still spending money on Katrina assistance, more than 12 years
after the storm's landfall."
The Axios report
elicited immediate outrage from Puerto Ricans and others. San Juan Mayor Carmen
Yulín Cruz—a long-time critic of the Trump
administration's response to the storm—said in a pair of tweets, "[Trump] has never acknowledged
his responsibility in the PR humanitarian crisis; 3000+ died on his
watch. We remind the Pres the 'help' you say will not come is YOUR
RESPONSIBILITY. You are violating our human right by denying us what we
need."