The president, Donald Trump, announced an investment of 13,000 million dollars in infrastructure for Puerto Rico, a few weeks after the vote of the Puerto Ricans (emigrated after the Hurricane Maria disaster in 2017) can decide the key state of Florida in the November presidential election.
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"My Government is approving today the largest allocation of assistance to repair Puerto Rico's electricity grid and the educational system," Trump announced this Friday at a press conference from the White House.
"We are allocating funds to replace miles of power lines that should have been replaced a long time ago, they were already obsolete."
Almost exactly 3 years ago, on September 16, 2017, Puerto Rico was devastated by María, a Category 5 hurricane, the highest.
It left damages of about 90,000 million dollars.
The first question the president received at the press conference was why he was announcing this initiative years after the disasters and a few weeks before the vote in which he seeks to be re-elected.
"We have been working all this time trying to get it," Trump replied, "but it is very difficult to get the vote of the Democrats."
Much of Puerto Rico is still without electricity or water due to the continuous earthquakes
Jan. 8, 202001: 50
They also asked him if this was a response to the criticisms made by Biden, that he sees Puerto Ricans as second-class citizens, as he did in an interview with Noticias Telemundo, and how the Democratic campaign has tried to approach this group .
"The Biden-Harris campaign ... they can do whatever they want," he said. "Obama was a disaster for Puerto Rico."
In the so-called I-4 Corridor, the Tampa and Orlando area in the crucial state of Florida, a substantial number of Puerto Ricans have emigrated, escaping not only from Hurricane Maria but also from a series of earthquakes in January and May of this year.
These Puerto Ricans, as they are US citizens, can now vote in the presidential election.
Biden told Noticias Telemundo in an interview that "this president treats Puerto Rico, Puerto Rican citizens, and Puerto Ricans in the United States as second-rate citizens."
"He visits the country after Hurricane Maria and throws kitchen paper at people. He makes sure they don't get the reconstruction money that they were promised and needed.
He doesn't pay attention to them and talks about them in a derogatory way. I think it's outrageous, "
Biden said.
Biden said that if he wins the presidency, he will make sure to "provide medical assistance, Medicare and Medicaid", to provide "help for his education system, that the universities of Puerto Rico receive the same aid that historically black and Hispanic universities receive." .