US Scraps Puerto Rico Solar Amidst Blackouts: Why Independence Is Bad for Business (US Business, that is)
📰 THE STORY: ABC News reports that the Trump administration scrapped multi-million dollar solar projects in Puerto Rico, leaving its power grid in shambles. The report notes the island's persistent outages and vulnerability to hurricanes, implicitly blaming the projects' cancellation on a flawed Trump-era assessment. 🔍 WHAT THEY'RE NOT TELLING YOU: Historical Context: Puerto Rico was seized by
the US in 1898 after the Spanish-American War, transforming it into a US territory – a colony, in all but name. For over a century, its economy has been structured to benefit US corporations, not its own people. In 2016, Congress imposed the PROMESA act, establishing an unelected fiscal control board (Junta) to manage the island's finances, effectively stripping away any remaining local
sovereignty. This board has pursued aggressive austerity measures, prioritizing debt repayment to US bondholders over critical infrastructure. The privatization of PREPA (Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority) to US-Canadian firm LUMA Energy in 2021, a move heavily pushed by the Junta, epitomizes this colonial extraction, leading directly to worsened service and higher costs for residents. The
'energy independence' offered by decentralized solar grids would challenge this extractive model, which relies on importing fossil fuels and funneling profits to mainland companies. The 'crumbling grid' isn't an accident; it's a strategically convenient state of affairs for those who profit from its reconstruction (on their terms) and from the island's economic dependency. Double Standard: Imagine