President Ronald Reagan endorsed statehood for Puerto Rico openly
Quotes from article from Pres Ronald Reagan and Statehood (The Wall Street Journal, Feb 11, 198)The GOP should honor his commitment to promote and defend statehood for the Island or Puerto Rico.
Hernan Padilla
I. When I formally announced my intention to seek the Republican nomination in1980, not only included a commitment to support statehood for Puerto Rico if the people of the island desired statehood. It also included a commitment that, as President, I would initiate statehood legislation, which really means that that I would take the lead in persuading the people of Puerto Rico—the mainland United States- all American Citizens- that statehood would de good for all of us.
II. Fidel Castro hardly let’s a speech go by without denouncing “Yankee imperialism” in Puerto Rico and calling for total independence from the United States. (Now they are Chavez, Raul Castro, Noriega, Evo Morales, etc)
III. As Commonwealth, Puerto Rico is now neither a state nor independent, and thereby has an historically unnatural status………. Its unnatural status creating tensions around the idea of American “colonialism” Yankee Imperialism”
IV. In cementing itself to us as the 51st State, with unbreakable bonds, Puerto Rico would represent a positive bridgehead into the Caribbean Latin America and the developing world.
V. The geopolitical concept of Puerto Rico’s exposed position on the frontlines of geoplitics isn’t new… It is understood by Gov, Carlos Romero Barcelo and San Juan Mayor Hernan Padilla, the two dynamic advocates of statehood, and profoundly understood by Luis Ferre. To these men, statehood is an historic imperative.
VI. About US: If we en the United States cannot design a model for a political economy that is sufficiently attractive, I f we can’t win over our fellow citizens in Puerto Rico to the nuptial that statehood involves, how can our model succeed as an instrument of foreign policy anywhere in the world?
VII. Puerto Ricans already face higher Tax Rates and they have shed a disproportionate share of blood, relative to mainland citizens, in our wars.
VIII. We must once again make economic policy an essential ingredient of foreign policy. This is behind my idea of Statehood for Puerto Rico.
IX. We should pick a peaceful battleground of competition between economic systems, and…. a positive foreign policy. We can build from a bridgehead in Puerto Rico.
X. To show the world that the American idea can work in Puerto Rico is to show that our idea can work everywhere!