Trump declares Puerto Rico quake disaster, ties strings to relief
boosting aid to the island a day after placing tougher restrictions on billions of dollars in delayed hurricane relief.
Republican Trump has repeatedly clashed with Puerto Rico,
calling the island “one of the most corrupt places on earth.”
the Trump administration imposed dozens of new conditions on the island’s government to access $8.3 billion in delayed recovery funds for Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017.
Trump has described Puerto Rico’s leaders as either “incompetent or corrupt” and officials said the conditions were necessary to get the funds to Puerto Ricans.
Trump was holding Puerto Rico to a higher standard than U.S. states and called on Trump to release tens of billions more in delayed hurricane aid.
“The president considers disaster recovery money nothing more than
a bargaining chip in his petty political vendetta against people of color,”
The U.S. government has distributed around $15 billion of the $44 billion in aid the U.S. Congress approved for Puerto Rico after the hurricanes that killed about 3,000 people.
Among new restrictions on the relief is a
requirement Puerto Rico’s government get approval for aid spending from the island’s Fiscal Control Board, a federally-appointed agency for restructuring the territory’s debt.
The requirements also
block spending on Puerto Rico’s ageing electricity grid and
suspend its $15-per-hour minimum wage for federal relief work.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-p...e=domesticNews
goddamn racist Trash and goddamn his racist Exec branch.