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President Donald Trump wants to cut federal relief funds for Hurricane Maria because he says the Puerto Rican government uses them to pay off his debts, reported Axios, although no evidence can support this claim.
According to the report, Trump can not recover the aid already paid to the island and did not ask the White House to do so. However, it may refuse to sign another bill to provide federal funding for Puerto Rico's recovery efforts.
The President came to the conclusion on his own last month after watching a the Wall Street newspaper This article combines the price of Puerto Rico bonds with the island's expectations for increased federal aid, according to sources cited by Axios. Trump apparently determined that this meant the US territory was using this money to pay off its debts, which it had falsely tweeted about last month.
The federal government has spent $ 6 billion in disaster relief since Hurricane Maria devastated the island last year, according to FEMA. It is estimated that the federal government will spend more than $ 55 billion on Maria's recovery. Congress is preparing to adopt new spending bills in December.
Local activists recovered from the situation and organized themselves to restore electricity by installing small solar grids on the southeast coast of the island. Newsweek reported. For eight months after the hurricane, people lived without secure lighting or refrigeration and were tired of waiting for the help of the federal government. The island's organizers started to distribute themselves food and water, provided basic health care and worked on the installation of a micro-station. network powered by solar energy.
Trump also leaked inaccurate information about the victims of the hurricane in September, when he disputed the official record of the storm – again without evidence. Puerto Rican Governor Ricardo Rosselló said that there were at least 3,000 hurricane-related deaths in August, which the president incorrectly interviewed in a pair of tweets.
