Trump finally responds to Puerto Rico crisis, saying island has 'massive debt'

President’s belated response to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Maria in US territory seems to blame islanders for their own misfortune

It took Donald Trump five full days to respond to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Maria on the lives of 3.5 million Americans in Puerto Rico, and when he finally did so his comments on Twitter were so devoid of empathy it threatened to spark a new controversy.

Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria – in pictures Read more

Hot on the heels of the billowing dispute he single-handedly provoked over African-American sporting figures protesting racial inequality during the national anthem, Trump launched another provocation on Monday night with a belated and lacklustre response to the Puerto Rican disaster.

In a series of three tweets he effectively blamed the islanders – all of whom are American citizens – for their own misfortune.

“Texas & Florida are doing great but Puerto Rico, which was already suffering from broken infrastructure & massive debt, is in deep trouble,” he said, without offering any additional federal government assistance for the stricken US territory, which was hit by Hurricane Maria soon after those two states were struck by Harvey and Irma.

Trump acknowledged that “much of the island was destroyed”, but caustically went on to say that its electrical grid was already “in terrible shape” and that Puerto Rico owed billions of dollars to Wall Street and the banks “which, sadly, must be dealt with”.

Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) Texas & Florida are doing great but Puerto Rico, which was already suffering from broken infrastructure & massive debt, is in deep trouble..

Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) ...It's old electrical grid, which was in terrible shape, was devastated. Much of the Island was destroyed, with billions of dollars....

Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) ...owed to Wall Street and the banks which, sadly, must be dealt with. Food, water and medical are top priorities - and doing well. #FEMA

It was the first comment Trump has made on Puerto Rico since hours before Maria made landfall as a category four hurricane pummelling the island and destroying its entire power network with winds of up to 155mph (250km/h). On that occasion he told the people of Puerto Rico: “We are with you.”

But for many Puerto Ricans the reality five days after the hurricane struck is that the US president has not been with them. Some 700 Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) staff are on the island, and a total of 10,000 federal workers, carrying out search and rescue missions and supplying basic food and water.

But at the same time Trump himself has spent the past five days mired in his self-made battle with African-American sports stars while seemingly oblivious to the plight of millions of Hispanic Americans in peril in a natural disaster zone.

“At the same time that he was doing all of that, we had American citizens in Puerto Rico who are in a desperate condition,” said Hillary Clinton in a radio interview which aired before Trump’s late-night tweets on Monday.

“He has not said one word about them, about other American citizens in the U.S. Virgin Islands. I’m not sure he knows that Puerto Ricans are American citizens.”

The Trump administration has also refused to waive federal restrictions on foreign ships carrying life-saving supplies to Puerto Rico – a concession it readily made for Texas and Florida in the cases of hurricanes Harvey and Irma respectively.

Many Puerto Ricans desperate to return home to island reeling from disaster Read more

In the last of his three tweets, Trump said that “food, water and medical are top priorities – and doing well”. But that may not tally with experiences on the ground where the governor, Ricardo Rosselló, has warned that Puerto Rico is on the brink of a “humanitarian crisis”.

In the hard-to-reach interior of the country, thousands of people are struggling with destroyed houses, a heat wave, and rapidly depleting supplies of clean water and food.

Earlier on Monday, Rosselló made a point of thanking former US president George H Bush and former Florida governor Jeb Bush for their calls of support.

Most Puerto Ricans were spared the experience of reading Trump’s tweets as a result of the ongoing total blackout on the island. But condemnation was swift in mainland US.

Juliette Kayyem, a former senior official in the department of homeland security under President Obama, said that Trump’s response to the Puerto Rico disaster showed “a lack of empathy of epic proportions”.

• This article was amended on 26 September 2017 because Jeb Bush was the governor of Florida, not Texas as an earlier version said.