Trump was serious about trade from Hurricane-hit Puerto Rico to Greenland, former DHS official said

Miles Taylor, a former Department of Homeland Security chief of staff who was recently featured in a Republican voter political ad against Trump, told MSNBC on Wednesday that President Donald Trump asked him and others responsible, if the United States could swap Greenland for Puerto Rico because, in Trump’s words, “Puerto Rico was dirty and the people were poor.”

The exchange took place in August 2018 before DHS officials embarked on a disaster recovery journey to Puerto Rico, which was devastated by Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017, according to Taylor.

“I didn’t take it as a joke,” Taylor said. The President expressed deep animosity towards the Puerto Rican people behind the scenes. These are people recovering from the worst disaster we have ever seen in our lives and he is their president. He should be by their side, not trying to sell them to a foreign country. “

Peter Brown, the White House’s special representative for disaster recovery in Puerto Rico, told NBC News he “never heard the president say anything like that.”

Brown said that in all of his interactions with Trump since February, when he was posted to Puerto Rico, Trump “has supported the unprecedented relief and recovery effort that the federal government has launched for Puerto Rico.”

Puerto Rico has faced a cascade of crises in recent years as it continues to recover from Hurricane Maria – which became the deadliest natural disaster in the United States in 100 years. It killed at least 2,975 people and was the third costliest hurricane. The island is also struggling to come out of the largest municipal bankruptcy in US history.

Trump has yet to publicly acknowledge or mourn the thousands of deaths in the 2017 hurricane aftermath. In recent years, Trump has also repeatedly doubled down on his previous public comments opposing disaster funding for Porto Rico.

Last year, hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans marched in the biggest protest in recent history to oust the then government. Ricardo Rosselló on a political scandal involving him and a dozen members of his cabinet.

Puerto Rico was struck by a sequence of seismic events that began on December 28, triggering multiple violent earthquakes that brought down hundreds of homes, schools and small businesses in January. Since, more than 9,800 tremors have been recorded on the island.

Puerto Rico is currently experiencing an increase in coronavirus cases and deaths. The island of 3.2 million people on Wednesday reported nearly 12,500 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, more than 15,500 probable and at least 356 deaths, according to the Puerto Rico Department of Health.

Fund allocation, but communities saw little money

So far, the federal government has allocated nearly $ 46 billion to help the island recover from its multiple disasters. But most of the funds, especially funds for housing and infrastructure, have not been channeled to communities on the island. Puerto Rico received only nearly $ 17 billion, according to FEMA’s Recovery Support Function Leadership Group.

FEMA Administrator Pete Gaynor last month admitted that the Puerto Rican island of Vieques still does not have a functioning hospital as thousands of other Puerto Ricans continue to wait for their homes to be rebuilt near three years after Hurricane Maria. In a 2018 after-action report, FEMA also acknowledged agency failures in areas such as staffing and coordination.

HUD has allocated historic amounts of funding for the island in housing, infrastructure and energy, nearly $ 20 billion. Puerto Rico has received less than 8 percent so far.

Brown said Trump “has been very supportive of the work of large federal agencies such as FEMA and HUD” as well as agencies that “we normally don’t think about in disaster recovery” like the agriculture departments, energy and education, among others. others, as the island recovers from all its crises.

Democratic lawmakers blamed the funding delay on additional restrictions the federal housing agency placed on Puerto Rico, citing concerns about “suspected corruption” and “tax irregularities” as well as “Puerto Rico’s ability to manage these funds “.

“Corruption diverts valuable resources from the Puerto Rican people,” Brown said, adding that the processes and oversight mechanisms that are in place are designed to ensure that federal aid “turns into meaningful relief for the people. Puerto Rican”.

But recent HUD audits of local government management of disaster grants suggest its reasons for freezing funds in Puerto Rico do not fully hold.

Audits have found Puerto Rico, Texas and Florida need better systems to apply for and monitor federal grants to rebuild after the 2017 hurricanes that devastated them. While all three U.S. jurisdictions had similar issues, HUD only delayed Puerto Rico’s funding process.

Brown, who is visiting Puerto Rico this week, said his priorities for Puerto Rico’s recovery include strengthening the island’s “basic infrastructure” to ensure reliable access to electricity, clean water and towers. resilient communications.

He is also working on revive the island’s pharmaceutical industry after the COVID-19 pandemic “revealed the vulnerability” of the US medical supply chain, which is heavily dependent on foreign companies.

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