Separatists are apparently giving up on building support for their unpopular status choice and instead are going straight to theater. Shortly after a fake executive order was written over President Donald Trump’s name and mailed to members of Congress, another stateside group demanded that Trump amend the Treaty of Paris.
Excluding Puerto Rico
Apparently, the proposal is to exclude Puerto Rico from the Treaty of Paris, which was signed in 1899.
Here’s what the treaty says about Puerto Rico: “Spain cedes to the United States the island of Porto Rico and other islands now under Spanish sovereignty in the West Indies, and the island of Guam in the Marianas or Ladrones.”
Puerto Rico is mentioned again in some discussions of details; books in Spanish will be allowed in Puerto Rico, prisoners of war will be returned to their home countries, Spain will give up ownership of public roads in Puerto Rico – -things like that. However, the main thrust of the document is that Spain is giving the United States Puerto Rico.
If Puerto Rico were excluded from the Treaty of Paris, then Spain would not have ceded Puerto Rico to the United States and Puerto Rico would presumably still be a colony of Spain. It seems unlikely that striking the name of the territory from the Treaty of Paris would actually cause it to belong to Spain after more than a century, but the people requesting this have another idea. They want Trump to create “a working party” to consider independence for Puerto Rico after he changes the Treaty.
The logical problem is that Puerto Rico would not belong to the United States if the treaty were actually changed to remove all mention of Puerto Rico. At that point, Puerto Rico would have to request independence from Spain.
Renegotiating the treaty
A treaty is a legal agreement between two nations. It can’t be changed by executive order, any more than a territory can be granted independence by an executive order. If Trump wants to change the Treaty of Paris, he would need to renegotiate it with Spain.
The Treaty of Paris was originally negotiated between “The United States of America and Her Majesty the Queen Regent of Spain, in the name of her august son Don Alfonso XIII.” Felipe VI, the current King of Spain, could presumably stand in for King Alfonso and the Queen Regent, so Trump could negotiate with Felipe VI to expunge Puerto Rico from the treaty.
Trump could also terminate the treaty, something which previous presidents have done. Normally, a treaty is terminated while it is still in force and making things happen. In the case of the Treaty of Paris, both Cuba and the Philippines are independent nations and Guam and Puerto Rico are territories of the United States. We can imagine that terminating the treaty would cause Guam and Puerto Rico to revert to Spanish colonies, but it is hard to fathom the possibility that Spain would reclaim Cuba and the Philippines.
In fact, as with other suggestions of reunification with Spain, the whole idea is hampered by the fact that Spain has shown no signs of wanting to rebuild its New World empire.
There is no visible path from renegotiating or repudiating the Treaty of Paris to independence for Puerto Rico.
Forced independence
The closer we look at this proposal, the sillier it seems. But let’s keep going and imagine that somehow the Treaty of Paris is amended and somehow that means that Puerto Rico becomes an independent nation. One of the clearest facts on this subject is this: Puerto Rico doesn’t want independence.
The separatists have been celebrating the enormous rise in pro-independence sentiments, but the truth is, that enormous increase took them to just 12% of the votes in the most recent status referendum. The majority of Puerto Rico voters want statehood, not independence. Could a working party or President Trump or a combination of the two force Puerto Rico to become independent?
The simple answer: no. Congress could do this, but — the baseless story that Congress is trying to pressure Trump to divest the United States of Puerto Rico aside — Congress shows no interest in doing so. Puerto Rico also has no interest in becoming independent. Trump is bent on expanding the United States, not losing territory. Where is the forced independence supposed to come from?
This kind of political theatre may be distracting, but it is not productive. Contact your legislators and let them know that you support statehood for Puerto Rico.
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