President Joe Biden said he is visiting Puerto Rico to see the damage wrought on the island by Hurricane Ian because the US territory has not been well-served by the federal government after past storms.
Mr Biden acknowledged the deficiencies in the response to previous hurricanes such as Hurricane Maria, the September 2017 storm that killed 2,975 people in Puerto Rico.
"I’m heading to Puerto Rico because they haven’t been taken very good care of — they’ve been trying like hell to catch up from the last hurricane,” Mr Biden said just before departing the White House on Monday morning.
A few hours later aboard Air Force One, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Mr Biden has “made it a priority to support Puerto Rico's long term recovery and increase its ability to withstand future storms” since “day one” of his administration.
The president added that he wants “to see the state of affairs” during his visit and” make sure we push everything we can” to assist Puerto Ricans, who are full US citizens even though the island does not have a voting member of Congress.
Mr Biden’s visit to the island comes five years after his predecessor, Donald Trump, made the trip there after Maria. According to a report by the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s inspector general, the Trump administration’s efforts to provision recovery funds to the island were “unnecessarily delayed by bureaucratic obstacles” such as opposition from the Trump White House Office of Management and Budget.
Though Mr Trump infamously made a show of tossing paper towel rolls to residents in need of aid when he toured hurricane damage, he later asked aides if the US could sell the island, according to the New York Times.
He also feuded with Puerto Rican officials on social media and blamed them for the island’s infrastructure problems, but he also claimed to be “the best thing that ever happened to Puerto Rico” after nearly 3,000 died on his watch.
Ms Jean-Pierre noted that the Biden administration has worked to roll back “burdensome restrictions” placed on the Puerto Rican government by Mr Trump’s former administration that prevented access to $5bn in funds for “critical recovery and reconstruction needs”.
“With today's visit, President Biden is making clear that supporting the people of Puerto Rico remains his priority,” she said, adding that his administration would support recovery efforts “each step of the way, for as long as it takes” including through allocation of more than $60m in funding to reinforce levees and flood barriers, as well as roll out a flood warning system on the island.
