Whether or not the U.S. pursues Greenland in earnest, the prospect of an international alliance or domestic annexation brings up the question of Puerto Rico’s future.
An intriguing article in the Washington Post (“The curious momentum behind Trump’s quest for Greenland,” Jan. 30) quotes Heritage Foundation scholars asserting that offering U.S. statehood to Greenland is a non-starter because voters there are used to European politics and would send socialists to Congress.
In contrast, Puerto Rico currently has a pro-statehood Republican Governor, a Republican Speaker in the Puerto Rico Legislature, and 58% of voters approved statehood in a 2024 referendum on the future of 3.5 million Americans in that territory. That’s the fourth vote for statehood since 2012. So, it is understandable if statehood advocates in Puerto Rico expect a different and far more historically enlightened Heritage Foundation posture on statehood as an option for resolution on that territory’s political status dilemma.
Former territorial Governor Pedro Juan Rossello Gonzalez borrowed the compelling aphorism from the Puerto Rico statehood movement about self-determination and admission to the union being the “unfinished work of American democracy” in our last large and populous American territory.
Enlightened imperialism
Perhaps that Puerto Rican patriotic truism should be adapted to the times we are living in during the Trump era. Statehood advocates in Puerto Rico and throughout the U.S. now can argue that statehood is the unfinished work of a new American era of democratically self-determined “enlightened imperialism” for Puerto Rico.
Indeed, what scholars at Harvard and Yale in 1900 espoused and touted as “enlightened imperialism” led to democratically established independence for the Philippines, statehood for Alaska and Hawaii, and still preserves the right of self-determination for Americans in Puerto Rico. In that historic context, Trump’s exuberance about the possibilities of a new unapologetic U.S. expansionism could make statehood for Puerto Rico part of what truly will make American great again.
After all, the American age of continental expansion was followed by the American age of “progressive imperialism,” two federal territorial policy paradigms which together led to permanent union under the Constitution and eventual statehood for 32 territories, the central defining feat of the American century. What most needs to be recognized by Trump today is that independence or statehood based on self-determination, not perpetual territorial status, was due to the anti-colonial tradition of the Northwest Ordinance as a founding document of the republic, the blueprint for American expansion that made great the 20th century America Trump aspires to make great again.
In contrast, the current neo-colonial status of Puerto Rico as a territory denies equal rights and duties of American citizenship despite the patriotism of the body politic proven on battlefields around the globe. Yet, the political limbo created by federal territorial law in Puerto Rico is based on “special rights” that exclude Puerto Rico from economic opportunity in the national marketplace. What the sage political analysts at Heritage Foundation need to recognize is that the current unincorporated territory status of Puerto Rico was created by social and political activist U.S. Supreme Court judges in 1901-1922, and the indefinite colonial model federal-territorial relations are a policy of the FDR New Deal era.
The constitutional expansionism that made America great started with the admission of Tennessee in 1796, followed by 31 other territories that became states, culminating in but not repeated since admission of Alaska and Hawaii as states in 1959. The lesson of our history is that once Congress grants citizenship in an annexed territory, the right to democratic self-determination leading to full freedom and equality through statehood is the only constitutionally permitted and proven pathway to making America great.
The insular cases
Unlike the Louisiana Purchase Treaty (1803), Alaska Cession Treaty (1867), Mexican Cession Treaty (1868), and Danish Virgin Islands Cession (1917), each of which made the people of those vast territories American citizens, the Spanish Cession Treaty (1899) left the status of the people to Congress When Congress failed to act the U.S. Supreme Court decided in the “Insular Cases” to allow Congress to govern Puerto Rico as an “unincorporated territory” not integrated into the union under the Constitution like 32 other Northwest Ordinance territories including Hawaii and Alaska.
Even when Congress granted American citizenship in 1917 the court held that it did not apply the Constitution, which has never been reconciled with the court’s opposite holding in the case of Alaska, Hawaii, and 30 other territories. That explains but does not justify why Americans in Puerto Rico and four other smaller territories (e.g. Guam) remain “unincorporated” without a pathway to a democrat status.
In that historical context, statehood for American citizens in Puerto Rico is an overdue account owing in the bank where the reserve assets of American democracy and greatness are deposited. Republican centrists and MAGA neo-imperialists alike, along with Democrats whether moderate or progressive, can agree that 3.5 million Americans in a territory as large as Connecticut cannot be left dangling without a permanent status based on equality under the U.S. Constitution, which cannot be attained except by the right to voting representation that comes only with statehood.
As Ronald Reagan argued in a 1980 Wall Street Journal article, the need to make American democracy work in Puerto Rico is essential to an American strategy from the Monroe Doctrine forward for peace through strength in the Americas, and in the Cold War at that time, throughout the world. Reagan no doubt would implore that Americans embrace that resolve with conviction even greater than his in 1980 as the winds of Chinese communist imperialism sweep around the world today, and indeed into the Caribbean as these words are written.
Roosevelt Roads
Back in the era of American early 20th century imperialism, in the immediate aftermath of the Spanish American War, the territory of Puerto Rico and its harbor was a prize of conquest. The Puerto Rico islands became the anchor of American security at the south-easternmost border of our nation in WWI, WWII and until the end of the Cold War. That was due in large part to the once great and mighty Roosevelt Roads Naval Operations Base, a 9,000-acre Navy station with mile wide deep water ports and an 11,000-foot runway.
It was short-sighted, knee-jerk Republican political petulance that led to closure of that base in 2004, in retaliation for closure of the important bombing rage at Vieques island in Puerto Rico that had become environmentally, politically and culturally unsustainable despite its exceptional military training value. President George W. Bush acquiesced in shuttering that vital base at the behest of a situationally unaware and obstinate U.S. Senator personally offended by the Vieques shutdown.
Closure of that base killed off 6,000 comparatively high paying jobs and blew a $300 million hole every year since through the middle of the Puerto Rico economy. That contributed significantly if not centrally to the economic underperformance of Puerto Rico, where a vibrant private sector was suppressed by bad federal and local tax policy enabling big-pharma and other mainland corporations to write of federal taxes through subsidiaries in the territory.
Resulting private sector dependence on federal command economics and fiscal distress is now used as an excuse not to resolve the status of Puerto Rico based on the anti-colonial tradition of the Northwest Ordinance. That impedes convergence with the national economy that meant success for every territory that became a state.
Puerto Rico is statehood ready
Yet, even with its federal financial control program still in place to manage fiscal instability, Puerto Rico is more statehood-ready politically and even economically than many if not most territories admitted as states since 1796. Statehood is the only permanent status with equal rights and duties for millions of Americans for whom the territory is home.
Historians are seeing that a major political and economic realignment may be at hand. After all, Palau’s free association status model (the means of annexation or alliance with Greenland as proposed by Heritage) was considered and rejected by our fellow Americans in Puerto Rico in four political status plebiscites since 2012.
Accordingly, incorporation into the union under the U.S. Constitution is arguably the only democratic option to make American great again in the Caribbean. As a state, Puerto Rico can be the anchor of a strategic arc defending the U.S. in the Atlantic from Greenland and USVI to Panama, just as Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, the Mariana Islands, Free Associated States under COFA, and American Samoa defend the U.S. in the Pacific.
The conversation around Greenland should look to Puerto Rico’s history and current status as there is a clear lesson to be learned on viable options for Greenland, should it choose a direct relationship with the U.S. The U.N. and U.S. recognize the “Free Association” model for a loose alliance terminable at will either party in favor of independence. Those pushing for free association can’t sustain denial that U.S. citizenship will end, because under our constitutional framework common citizenship makes free association colonial.
Republicans now have a chance to restore American anti-colonial heritage by resolving Puerto Rico’s century old status dilemma. Instead of the legendary Tennessee Plan or California Plan for a territory to seek admission to the union, Puerto Rico should consider the Dakota Plan, by repudiating anachronistic court rulings and declaring the U.S. Constitution adopted and applicable in the territory based on self-determination. Then Congress can finally do its job and define the terms for the state of Puerto Rico to be admitted on equal footing with other states.
No responses yet