Residente Rips U.S. Government For Treatment Of Puerto Rico After Hurricane Maria

René Pérez Joglar better known as Residente, expressed one more time his opinion against the U.S. government and how President Donald Trump handled the situation after the Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico.

Two weeks after the passage of Maria, Trump, visited Puerto Rico with his wife, the first lady Melania Trump. During his very brief visit, the president couldn’t leave behind the controversy, especially when he downplayed the storm by the low number of victims and not being a "real catastrophe," comparing Maria to Hurricane Katrina.

"Every death is a horror, but if you look at a real catastrophe like Katrina, and you look at the tremendous — hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people that died, and you look at what happened here, with really a storm that was just totally overpowering, nobody's ever seen anything like this," he said.

Many cataloged the president's visit as a terrible event because while the American citizens are struggling for survival on the island, the president set out to throw paper towels to the victims as if he were playing basketball.

"First, I think that what’s going on in Puerto Rico—the failure—would have been the same whether we had Trump or Hillary or Obama as president," Residente told The Nation. "All of them would have failed equally, because no U.S. president in history has really cared about our situation. The fact that Trump is president now has helped, because Puerto Rico has become a charity case after the rude and insensitive way he treated us: throwing paper towels at people, making stupid comments about Puerto Rico, picking a fight with our mayor. All of that has served as a megaphone so that what’s been happening here is heard around the world."

"I think that if Hillary were president, since she’s politically correct, she would’ve come to Puerto Rico, she would’ve snapped a photo with people, would have met with a few people, but in the end would have done the same," he added.

"Let’s not forget that Obama visited once for four hours, left with a million dollars, and never came back or said anything. So I don’t think that the Trump administration would have been the only one to fail. The United States is just not interested in Puerto Rico."

The powerful tropical cyclone made landfall in Puerto Rico on September 21, 2017, with winds of 155 mph (250 km/h), becoming the strongest to hit the territory since the 1928 San Felipe hurricane, as well as the most intense hurricane to hit the territory in recorded history.

"I think Puerto Rico is recovering, but it’s more of a psychological than economic recovery as people begin to realize that our colonial status isn’t in our best interest," Residente said. "Our self-esteem has to grow and we have to feel like we can do things for ourselves—that’s something that they’ve tried to take out of our system. That’s the recovery that’s going on right now. The people who lived on a cloud, thinking that being a colony was better, are realizing that it’s not, and that we need a new alternative."

Category 4 Maria, left the whole island blacked out and badly damaged the houses, leaving a trail of total destruction, as did the collapse in all communication lines. The storm ripped trees out of the ground and caused widespread flooding, particularly in San Juan, the capital, where many residential streets looked like rivers.