Puerto Rico Regains Strategic Importance for the U.S. Due to the Deployment in the Caribbean

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√ Governor Jennifer González is confident that the island’s economic success will encourage Washington to accommodate Puerto Rico’s desire for statehood.

√ Support for becoming the 51st state of the U.S. remains widespread, but the "Donohue Doctrine" may reinforce a desire to maintain a certain distance or independence.

√ Trump’s previous lack of regard for Puerto Rico and the pacifist sentiment among part of the population undermine the centripetal force of the plan for dominance over Greater North America.

The United States’ renewed interest in its immediate geographical vicinity, in accordance with the so-called Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine (colloquially known as the “Donroe Doctrine”), brings Puerto Rico back into the close orbit of the United States. While two decades ago the U.S. closed its Roosevelt Roads naval base on the eastern tip of the island following the end of the Cold War, the new rivalry between global powers and the hegemony the Trump administration seeks to exert over the Western Hemisphere grant Puerto Rico a prominent strategic role: that of an outpost over the Caribbean and northern South America.

Throughout his degree program , Trump has shown little empathy toward the island. However, it has become essential for the operations ordered by U.S. Southern Command—including counter-narcotics operations, pressure on Venezuela and the ouster of Nicolás Maduro, and the oil embargo against Cuba.

Those in Puerto Rico who have been advocating for decades that this territory—which has the status of a Commonwealth—become a state of the Union believe that the Monroe Doctrine could pave the way for a process of statehood. Puerto Rico is under U.S. sovereignty but is not strictly part of the United States; Puerto Ricans share U.S. citizenship but cannot vote for the president unless they live in the U.S. Washington has always been reluctant to review this status over time, voices on the island calling for greater autonomy and even independence have grown louder. An “imperial” attitude on the part of the United States could well intensify that trend.

Military operation

The teachings of Admiral Alfred T. Mahan, which underpin U.S. geopolitical thinking, highlighted the strategic importance of the straits between the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, located just east of Cuba and east of Puerto Rico. The war against Spain in 1898 allowed the U.S. to establish the Guantanamo military base at the first of these straits and the Roosevelt Roads base at the second, from which the nearby islands of Vieques and Culebra were used as firing ranges. By the end of the 20th century, in the unipolar era of unchallenged U.S. international leadership, these military facilities in Puerto Rico lost their relevance and were completely closed by 2004 (the primary interest in Guantanamo stems from its location on the route from the U.S. East Coast to the Panama Canal).

The changes in the world order that have taken place since then are symbolically reflected here: amid the renewed invocation of the Monroe Doctrine—whose original version had already led to the annexation of Puerto Rico—the United States has reactivated the Roosevelt Roads base. During the deployment of Operation Lanza del Sur—carried out by the U.S. Southern Command to combat drug trafficking and the regimes that had been supporting it, such as the one led by Maduro—F-35, P-8 Poseidon, and C-17 Globemaster aircraft, among others, have used that base, which covers an area of 35 km² and includes an airport. The island has also served as a platform for MQ-9 Reaper drones, while submarines such as the Wichita and the aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford have docked at the port of Ponce, located on the southern coast along the Caribbean Sea.

Suddenly, Puerto Rico has once again become useful to the United States. With the National Security Strategy and the National Defense Strategy, published in recent months, calling for ensuring U.S. access to strategic locations in the region and denying it to other powers, retaining Puerto Rico has become a priority for Washington.

Political fit

The growing political disinterest in the island and the financial burden that a territory running a deficit places on the federal budget had not yet sparked any movement in the United States to abandon Puerto Rico to its fate. But efforts made in San Juan to try to enforce the results of the plebiscites—which, from time to time, came out in favor of statehood—certainly fell on deaf ears.

Although the current Commonwealth status enjoyed broad support in the 1967 enquiry , in 1993 it faced stiff competition from the statehood option, which subsequently gained ground in the plebiscites of 1998, 2012, 2017, and 2024. In the latter year, statehood received 58.6% of the vote; the option for a strengthened Commonwealth received 29.5%, and independence, 11.8%.

The fact that there have been so many referendums—which are advisory and non-binding— sample internal division among Puerto Ricans, as well as Washington’s lack of interest in listening to the island. Neither the U.S. Democratic Party nor the Republican Party has encouraged statehood, and their top leaders have, in fact, dashed those hopes.

Trump, in particular, was especially distant toward Puerto Ricans during his first term in office. When Hurricane Maria struck the island in 2017, his administration was criticized for its slow response to the needs of those affected; Trump later accused local authorities of diverting financial aid funds to pay financial aid the financial aid endemic public debt. In October 2024, during his second presidential campaign, Trump hosted a comedian at a campaign rally who referred to Puerto Rico as “an island of trash in the ocean”; the candidate later candidate his disagreement with that statement, asserting that “no one loves Puerto Ricans more than I do.”

discussion

Puerto Rico Governor Jennifer González, of the conservative New Progressive Party (PNP), took position January 2025, at the same time as Trump, with whose policies she has identified, although she had criticized him in the past. González was particularly supportive of the Southern Command’s military deployment and the arrest of Maduro, and she believes that the island’s increased strategic importance to Washington could pave the way for a process toward statehood, of which she is a staunch advocate.

The civil service examination, formed by the Popular Democratic Party (PDP) and the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP), as well as some organizations such as “Mothers Against War,” have expressed their opposition to the “remilitarization” of the island and its use as a staging ground for military operations—including those near the island itself—without formal authorization from Puerto Rican institutions. It is also noted that Puerto Ricans have no say in the decisions of congress , as they hold only one seat (with voice but no vote) in the U.S. House of Representatives. The mayor of Ceiba, the municipality where Roosevelt Roads is located, has also weighed in on this discussion ; he, on the other hand, views the economic impact of the base’s reactivation positively.

The“neo-imperial”style attributed to the Trump presidency—manifested most strikingly in the revitalized Monroe Doctrine’s claim to dominance over the Western Hemisphere—particularly in what the Trump administration has begun to call “Greater North America,” which extends southward to the equator—clashes with a growing aspiration within Puerto Rican society. While it is true that a significant portion of the population would prefer to become another U.S. state, other sectors warn that Puerto Rico’s unique island status is not being addressed by Washington, nor would it be in that scenario. The century-old Jones Act stipulates that only U.S. ships may carry goods and passengers from one port to another within the country, which has particularly negative consequences for Puerto Rico: this is a grievance that is frequently raised but never resolved.