Trump does not want more relief funds sent to Puerto Rico

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Although there are no talks to reduce funds already allocated, a White House aide said the negotiations were aimed at keeping Puerto Rico's relief funds in an additional spending bill aimed at fund relief operations in the hurricane-ravaged southern regions of the country. year.

This assistant noted that the Puerto Rican officials had not yet spent all the money that the Congress had reserved for them, and that the administration wished to prevent any additional financing to help the island, because they do not need it and can not spend it. "

Trump's latest positioning on Puerto Rico was reported for the first time by Axios. The White House has been letting this know on Capitol Hill for "a moment now," said the president's congressional aide.
Trump had previously targeted the Puerto Rican authorities for managing billions of relief funds that his administration had appropriated for recovery after a storm, accusing island leaders of spending some of that money for money. reasons other than cleaning up following a hurricane.
"The people of Puerto Rico are wonderful, but incompetent politicians are trying to use the huge and ridiculously high amounts of hurricane and disaster funding to meet their obligations," Trump said. tweeted on October 23. "The United States will NOT solve their long overdue obligations with hurricane relief money!"
More than a month ago, the president had repeatedly said that the number of victims of hurricanes Irma and Maria was close to 3,000 dead, stating that the Democrats had exploited these figures to give a bad image of his administration. . Nothing indicates that partisan politics played a role in calculating the count of the dead, and George Washington University, who conducted the study to calculate the death toll, issued a statement at the time which indicated that she was sticking to her work. .

Discussions about the removal of Puerto Rico's future financing come as legislators seek to avoid a government shutdown when temporary spending bills expire in early December. The fight for funding could be the latest in the Trump presidency led by a Republican-controlled Congress, with Democrats having a majority coming to the House.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for the governor of Puerto Rico, Ricardo Rossello, could not be reached for comment.

In October, the Puerto Rican government developed a five-year economic plan to provide $ 82 billion in relief from the government's hurricane response. The plan has been approved by a federal control board, which oversees the island's finances. Board Executive Director Natalie Jaresko said the funds would not be budgeted for debt repayment, but rather to help stimulate the economy.

In February, Puerto Rico received $ 16 billion in federal aid under a Trump disaster relief program.

The devastated island funding was part of a $ 90 billion package agreed by Senate leaders under a two-year budget agreement aimed at preventing the government from closing. The relief agreement covered a number of major disasters in the United States, including hurricanes Maria, Irma and Harvey, as well as forest fires in California.

Puerto Rico had estimated that it would take $ 94 billion to rebuild the devastated island after two destructive hurricanes, which destroyed its power grid and its infrastructure.

Donna Borak, Betsy Klein and Maegan Vazquez from CNN contributed to this report.

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