Jose Atiles is an associate professor of criminology, law, and society at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a Public Voices Fellow of the OpEd Project. He is the author of Crisis by Design: Emergency Powers and Colonial Legality in Puerto Rico and the forthcoming Islands of Exception: Law, Empire, and Offshore Finance in The Caribbean.
Without full sovereignty, Puerto Rico is significantly constrained in its ability to design independent fiscal or monetary policies — leaving the island vulnerable to tourism investments that are becoming increasingly financialized.
Donald Trump is aiming to restore US supremacy in the western hemisphere through presidential will, military power, and emergency authority, unconstrained by Congress or international law — a strategic reorientation that runs through Puerto Rico.
The problem with Donald Trump’s recent firing of six members of Puerto Rico’s Financial Oversight and Management Board isn’t who he decided to fire — it’s the board’s very existence as a tool of colonial rule over Puerto Rico.