Puerto Rico Contemplates A Reunion With Spain

Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it. America’s fake president, a/k/a King Donald I, has a facility for looking at a map of the world and redrawing the boundaries of countries in his mind. In Puerto Rico, some residents have been having similar thoughts. What if their island went back to being part of Spain, the way it was before the USS Maine blew up in Havana Harbor and sparked the Spanish–American War?

Prior to that, the island belonged to Spain for more than four centuries after Christopher Columbus landed near Mayaguez in the northwest corner of the island on November 19, 1493. Students of history know that Columbus wrote the Indigenous people he encountered were friendly, docile, and would make excellent slaves. Many Puerto Ricans feel like they have been slaves to one country or another ever since.

The people of Puerto Rico are US citizens, but they cannot vote in US presidential elections and have no voting representation in Congress. Many pay no US taxes, which means the government has to be propped up by contributions from the US. As usually happens, those who pay want to set the rules, which is why everything shipped to and from Puerto Rico and the US is required to be carried by ships registered in the US.

That is a boon for US shipping companies and unionized members of the merchant marine, but it adds additional costs to everything that comes to or leaves the island. For instance, the power plants that generate much of the island’s electricity burn oil, which has to be imported by American ships. So Puerto Rico gets a double whammy — expensive electricity and high carbon emissions.

Puerto Rico Autonomy Movement

José Lara is the head of a movement entitled Adelante Reunificacionistas, which wants to end the island’s current status as a US territory and have it become the eighteenth autonomous community of Spain. Spanish is the primary language of 95 percent of all Puerto Rico residents and Spanish culture is predominant throughout the island, despite more than a century of American hegemony. In the US, hatred of Puerto Rican people has flourished and was the primary focus of West Side Story, which opened on Broadway in 1957.

One of the most beautiful beaches in the world is called Media Luna, Spanish for Half Moon Bay, on the island of Vieques. The name says it all. It is nestled between two peninsulas that protect it from the ocean. Today, Media Luna is a tranquil tropical paradise, but for decades, Vieques was used by the US military as a bombing range. The attitude in Washington was, “Who cares if we blow stuff up in Puerto Rico? We can’t see it from here.” Things might have been different if the bombing runs took place on Mackinac Island in Michigan.

Adelante Reunificacionistas was founded in 2017 and Lara says about 13 percent of Puerto Rico residents support the idea of reunification with Spain, which currently has 17 autonomous regions — 15 on the Iberian Peninsula plus the Canary islands 850 miles southwest in the Atlantic and the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean east of Valencia. Supporters view affiliating with Spain would provide a way of escaping the economic and cultural stagnation that has affected the island for over a century under US rule.

Hurricane Maria Brings Paper Towels

They are not wrong. US control of Puerto Rico has been more about corruption than governance. Lara openly denounces “a century of subjugation” under American authority. With its residents lacking a voice in their governance, they have been left with limited political rights and a crisis of identity.

Just how low the island ranks in the scheme of things became apparent in 2017 when Hurricane Maria devastated the island with Category 5 winds. With the power out all across the island, Carmen Yulín Cruz, the mayor of San Juan, made impassioned pleas for help on national television and social media. “We are dying, and you are killing us with the inefficiency. I am begging, begging anyone that can hear us, to save us from dying,” she said, according to a report by La Voce Di New York. In response to her plea, the cartoon president flew in, passed out a few rolls of paper towels to the bewildered locals, and flew back out again. Hasta la vista, Puerto Rico! Many Americans at the time did not even realize Puerto Rico was part of the US, and still don’t.

The electrical grid has still not recovered from Maria and efforts to install solar panels have often by stymied by special interests in Washington. With the current administration engaged in a war on renewables, last month the US Energy Department ordered the island to stop spending money on solar and divert those funds to increasing the output of the oil-fired generating stations in and around Ponce in the south.

Why would the Energy Department do such a stupid thing? Just last year, it promised a more than half-billion-dollar loan guarantee to support more solar on the island. Because the US wants to enjoy ” energy dominance” over the rest of the world, which means burning more coal, oil, and methane. Heaven forfend that Puerto Rico should transition to solar power! That would be a major embarrassment to the US and its tin horn dictator.

Adelante Reunificacionistas supporters believe reunification with Spain would bring tangible benefits such as full access to the European Union, official protection for the Spanish language, and a renewal of the island’s Spanish culture. “Puerto Rico never truly wanted to part ways with the Iberian Peninsula,” claims Lara. The movement proposes a model inspired by the Canary Islands or Catalonia, one that promises strong internal autonomy and the potential to serve as a cultural bridge between Europe and Latin America.

“No formal negotiations have been initiated with either Washington or Madrid, and Spain itself has yet to issue any official statements. Still, the growing interest in an alternative to the current status quo reflects an identity driven restlessness that cannot be ignored,” La Voce says.

US Failures In The Caribbean

The Monroe Doctrine may have made the Caribbean an American lake, but the US has treated it more like a toilet. Poverty, corruption, and crime are rampant throughout the so-called US Virgin Islands — St. Thomas, St, Croix, St. John, and 50 other smaller islands that dot the Caribbean. Tourists who visit Charlotte Amalie on St. Thomas are warned not to venture too far from their cruise ships, especially after dark. Those tourists leave tons of money behind, but little of it finds its way into the pockets of local residents.

The poverty rate in Puerto Rico is about 40 percent among its 3.2 million inhabitants. According to the Boston Globe, nearly twice as many Puerto Ricans — 5.9 million — lived in the US in 2024. Even though the per capita income in Puerto Rico is higher than it is in many Latin American countries, the lure of better opportunities on the mainland continues to rob the island of many of its most talented people.

Islands In The Sun

A decade ago, I spent a week circumnavigating the island and exploring the interior. It has an abundance of great beaches and natural treasures, like the El Yunque National Forest and its bioluminescent bay, but the poverty is obvious everywhere you go away from the main roads. I also got to spend time in the Canary Islands a few years ago. Although my tour guide said economic opportunities there were limited and that those who wanted to earn a good living had to move to Spain to do so, the standard of living was noticeably higher than it was in Puerto Rico. The interior towns away from the coast were more prosperous than those in Puerto Rico. Overall, I would say the Canary Islands have fared better under Spanish dominion than Puerto Rico has under US rule.

Boundaries Are All In Your Head

America’s own Auric Goldfinger has been musing lately about borders and boundaries. In his limited judgement, they are just artificial lines on a map that can be moved on a whim, and to some extent he is correct. Why not just use the 49th parallel as the border between the US and Canada from the Atlantic to the Pacific? That would make most of the southern part of Canada the property of the United States, including Toronto, Montreal, most of the Labrador peninsular, and the Maritimes. Canada could keep Moose Jaw, Yellow Knife, and Thunder Bay.

Some in Europe have allowed themselves similar musings. Denmark is in the EU. Greenland is an autonomous territory of Denmark and is one of the overseas countries and territories of the European Union. Greenland and Canada share a border (or a least a line in the ocean), which means Canada could also become part of the EU. See what happens when you start questioning the status quo?

The Indigenous people of Hawai’i have long chafed at the idea that their islands are part of the United States. People in the Canadian Maritime provinces have harbored resentments about the government in Ottawa and fantasized about become part of New England. In fact, a significant number of them have moved to the North Shore of Boston and communicate regularly with family members across the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick by boat.

Once you open the “borders are flexible” can of worms, all sorts of possibilities come to light. Right now, California might welcome the idea of becoming part of Canada. The coastal areas of Oregon and Washington would probably join them, while the interior parts of those states would be only too glad to join together to become the Free State of Greater Idaho. The United States could easily become the Disunited States of America, with checkpoints at border crossings similar to those that visitors encounter when visiting the United Arab Emirates, which are anything but.

All of this because Puerto Rico wants to re-affiliate with Spain? Absolutely. Once that idea is let loose in the world, who knows what the consequences might be? Borders are just walls, and as Robert Frost taught us, “Before I built a wall, I’d ask to know what I was walling in or walling out.” The answer could have significant geopolitical consequences.

Having experienced Puerto Rico in all its many aspects and its interior communities far from the tourist Meccas, I support the idea of it returning to Spanish control. In my view, it would be no worse off than it is as a US territory and might well benefit greatly from the change. If that means it finally gets the solar infrastructure it so desperately needs, that alone would be worth it.