President Donald Trump has proposed making Canada the 51st state, a title many Puerto Ricans hoped to gain for their territory. But Trump’s Canada push hasn’t disheartened the advocates leading the charge for Puerto Rican statehood.
Instead, the president’s expansionist mindset is giving them renewed hope — and new material to craft a tailor-made pitch to Trump in favor of statehood.
“This president, since his swearing-in, has been very vocal about expanding the territorial area of the United States for national security and economic reasons,” José Fuentes-Agostini, the chairman of the Puerto Rico Statehood Council, told NOTUS. “We are thrilled with his position because we feel that the primary reason to make Puerto Rico a state is precisely for national security reasons and economic development reasons.”