Carolene Fontanet Smith

Because Trump contemplated selling Puerto Rico after Hurricanes Irma and Maria devastated the island in 2017

On October 3, 2017, Puerto Rico was grappling with the aftermath of two back-to-back hurricanes that led to the death of thousands, destroyed countless homes and businesses, and crippled its already frail infrastructure. Most of us Puerto Ricans living on the island had no electricity and limited access to necessities such as clean water, gas, and medical care.

Enter then President Donald J. Trump, who decided to visit our island to complain in person about the high cost of hurricane relief. Years later, an investigation by the Office of Inspector General would confirm that Trump officials blocked hurricane aid assigned to Puerto Rico, a US territory since 1898.

I believe that Kamala Harris is the clear option for any voter interested in fighting climate change and, in turn, preventing disasters like 2017’s hurricanes Irma and Maria, and 2024’s hurricanes Helene and Milton, to name just a few.

I also believe that she’s the ideal person to tackle other issues, like gun control, attacks on women’s bodily autonomy, and the economic struggles of the middle class.

Whether or not Harris’s presidency lives up to all of my hopes for it, I KNOW that she won’t:

  1. facetiously throw paper towels at disaster survivors;

  2. deny the actual death toll of an extreme weather event to save face; or

  3. claim she’s the best thing that’s ever happened to a place, despite maneuvering to avoid providing it with greatly needed aid.

Trump did all this and more against Puerto Rico, reportedly going so far as to contemplate selling the island, as if it were one of his bankrupt casinos, or trading it for Greenland. It tracks.

In a cruel twist of colonialism, Puerto Ricans like me, who live on the island, can’t vote against Trump and what he represents in the upcoming election. Though we are American citizens by birth, we are denied the right to vote for the president—that is, the person who, because of its territorial status, has the ultimate decisional power over our island’s future.

The silver lining in this scenario is that the approximately 100,000 Puerto Ricans who migrated to the mainland after the 2017 hurricanes (in large part as a result of Trump’s gross mismanagement of the crisis) and the millions who already lived there CAN vote and be the voice of those of us who can’t. 

I truly hope that they, along with other Americans, will remember Trump’s cruelty toward Puerto Rico when they cast their ballots.

Carolene Fontanet Smith is an attorney and writer.