Donald Trump turns to hurricane-hit Puerto Rico

By M.S.R. | WASHINGTON, DC

IT IS nearly a week since Hurricane Maria thumped Puerto Rico, flattening buildings and ripping up roads, and the island is still without electricity. Tens of thousands of its inhabitants are homeless. Many more are short of food and drinking water. On September 26th Carmen Yulín Cruz, the mayor of San Juan, the capital, wept as she described the wreckage. “I know that leaders aren’t supposed to cry and especially not on TV, but we’re having a humanitarian crisis here,” she said. “The worst fear is that we cannot get to everyone in time."

This may turn out to be the biggest test of Donald Trump’s presidency so far. If so, he is failing it. Faced with the reality of 3.4m Americans devastated by the biggest hurricane their island had seen in nearly 90 years, the president was silent for days.

The storm hit Puerto Rico on September 20th. While workers from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) were carrying out search and rescue operations and getting food and water to thirsty people, the president was preoccupied by a feud with National Football League players kneeling for the national anthem. He posted 12 tweets about that. On the evening of September 25th, when Mr Trump finally got around to commenting on Puerto Ricans’ trials, he seemed to suggest they were to blame for them.

“Texas & Florida are doing great but Puerto Rico, which was already suffering from broken infrastructure & massive debt, is in deep trouble”, he tweeted, alluding to the island’s $74bn debt load, which in May caused it to file for bankruptcy, as well as the recent storm damage in Texas and Florida. Mr Trump proceeded to tweet that “It’s [sic] old electrical grid, which was in terrible shape, was devastated. Much of the Island was destroyed, with billions of dollars...owed to Wall Street and the banks which, sadly, must be dealt with. Food, water and medical are top priorities - and doing well.”

The president’s response has been criticised by Republicans and Democrats. “Now is not the time [for talking about the island’s indebtedness], Mr President. Puerto Rico needs help from aid workers, not debt collectors from Wall Street,” Chuck Schumer, the Senate's minority leader, told journalists. Marco Rubio, a Republican senator from Florida, tweeted: "We have a fundamental obligation to Puerto Rico to respond to a hurricane there the way we would anywhere in the country”.

On September 26th Mr Trump pulled himself up, announcing that he would visit the island the following week. His administration issued photos of the president looking sombre as he was briefed on the crisis in the Situation Room. He also appeared at least to be grappling with the logistical problems of getting aid to an island: “It’s out in the ocean. You can’t just drive your trucks there from other states,” the president said.

Why has Mr Trump handled this so badly? He understands the optics of a president's initial response to a natural disaster. After Texas was lashed by Hurricane Harvey and Florida by Irma last month, he appeared anxious to avoid the mistakes of George W. Bush, whose presidency never recovered from his feeble response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Mr Trump was in frequent communication with the head of FEMA. He visited storm-hit areas within a few days, though he failed to show any empathy for those who had lost homes and businesses.

Perhaps Mr Trump’s reliance on cable TV, where he gets much of his information, is partly to blame. Compared to the round-the-clock reportage of last months’ hurricanes, news channels have covered Hurricane Maria as if it is a foreign catastrophe rather than a domestic one. That, after all, is how many viewers may think of it. A recent poll found that only 54% of Americans know that people born in Puerto Rico are American citizens.