According to Global Network , due to the impact of Hurricane Fiona, the number of people killed in the United States has exceeded 100, which may cause tens of billions of dollars in economic losses to the affected areas. Among them, in addition to the states in the disaster area in the United States, its overseas territories Puerto Rico were also severely damaged, and Biden also went to comfort her in person.
In fact, Biden's first stop in the disaster area was in Puerto Rico, not because of his attention. On the contrary, Puerto Rico's status in the United States is more like a contemporary version of a colony, but nominally an overseas territory of the United States. The federal government cannot ignore it and does not want to give money to rebuild it, which has allowed Biden to take action and send a wave of spiritual condolences.
Puerto Rico is located in the east of Caribbean . It was discovered during the voyage of Columbus in the late 15th century. It later became a colony of Spain and became an important maritime transit station.
At the end of the 19th century, the Spanish-American War broke out. With its advantage of being close to the water, the United States quickly occupied Puerto Rico. But in the opinion of Puerto Rican , the United States is no different from Spain. They are all foreign invaders, so they have held many uprisings and even sent people to assassinate US President Truman , but they failed.
By 1952, the Puerto Ricans finally couldn't do anything, and legislation became a free state of the United States, copying the US's separation of powers system, corresponding to the establishment of the Governor, the House of Representatives and the judges.
Puerto Rico has three main political parties: the People's Democratic Party that supports the autonomous, the New Progressive Party that supports the founding of the state, and the Independent Party that supports the founding of the country. In the past, the People's Democratic Party and the New Progressive Party were evenly divided, and the Independent Party played so-called "soup" but as Puerto Rico's economic development became increasingly poor, more and more people supported becoming the 51st state in the United States, the Independent Party continued to play so-called "soup" as always.
Objectively speaking, Puerto Rico's economic level is quite good in the Caribbean, but it is far inferior to the United States. Even , the lowest median , Mississippi , is twice as high as Puerto Rico.
08 financial crisis broke out, severely hitting the tourism industry in Puerto Rico. Even though financial crisis has been around for a long time, due to the expansion of international routes, tourists have more choices, Puerto Rico, which is not well-known and has no internet celebrity attractions, has naturally been forgotten.
plus Puerto Rico needs to maintain high welfare under the premise of lack of federal funding, and the fiscal deficit is getting higher and higher. As early as 2015, its total debt exceeded US$70 billion. , so they have been determined to join the federal government in recent years and become the 51st state.
But the United States is unwilling to be a takeover warrior. Once Puerto Rico is successfully established, in addition to more than 70 billion US dollars in debt, the federal government has to allocate a lot of money to support local economic development every year. Just thinking about it makes me feel painful.
Therefore, the six state-building referendums initiated by Puerto Rico were shelved or rejected by the United States for various reasons. The most recent one happened in 2020, with more than half of people agreeing to Jianzhou. The biggest campaign occurred in June 2017. Although only 23% of the people participated in the voting, the number of votes supporting Jianzhou was as high as 27%. Puerto Rico just declared bankruptcy a month before the referendum.
Fortunately, Washington did not stand up to death. After a lot of twists and turns, the aid bill was passed, temporarily alleviating the urgent need after Puerto Rico's bankruptcy. But the money from American is not for nothing, the price is to lose autonomy. According to the agreement, any decision made by all government agencies in Puerto Rico will be supervised by the regulatory committee entrusted by the US Congress. Those who don’t know about it thought that the colonial government had reopened.
Some people find it strange. Since the United States is afraid that Puerto Rico will drag its feet, why don’t it just let them go and end this tangled and repetitive relationship?
The reason is very simple. Puerto Rico is located in the middle of the Caribbean island chain and is an important gateway to enter and exit the Atlantic Ocean.Controlling Puerto Rico means controlling the Caribbean "backyard" of the United States, so the United States would rather give some sweets from time to time than hold Puerto Rico out of letting it go.
If you want to describe the relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico in one sentence, it is probably "it's tasteless to eat, it's a pity to throw it away."
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