There’s no other way to say it: the 2024 election outcomes are disastrous for Puerto Rico.

Donald Trump’s victory in the United States means the return of a president who doesn’t just defend racist jokes about Puerto Ricans being garbage—he treats us like it. Thousands died on the archipelago the last time there was a major disaster while Trump was in office. How many lives will he cost us this time?

In Puerto Rico, the victory of pro-Trump Republican Jenniffer González will only deepen Puerto Rico’s ongoing crises. And we cannot expect a politician who has praised Trump and would not even denounce him after our people were called trash at his rally to stand up for us.

We also cannot expect meaningful action on Puerto Rico’s decolonization. Yes: statehood won this week’s non-binding plebiscite—though more than 160,000 people left the ballot blank. That is a significant boycott from pro-sovereignty Puerto Ricans who reject these symbolic votes as viable decolonization processes.

At the same time, the plebiscite showed a massive increase in support for sovereign status options, which combined for 43% of the vote—including 30% for full independence. And pro-independence gubernatorial candidate Juan Dalmau came in second with a historic 33% of the vote in a four-way race, far ahead of the party that has supported Puerto Rico’s status colonial status quo.

But the U.S. Congress has ignored all six previous votes on Puerto Rico’s status. And the Republican Party, which is opposed to Puerto Rican statehood in the strongest terms, will surely ignore this one.

What does this all mean for our work? We will expand our efforts to advocate and organize on behalf of Puerto Rico and to resist leaders who would neglect and harm our people.

We will continue to meet with our allies in Congress and with all federal lawmakers to push for action on decolonization and on all issues that affect Puerto Rico. We will continue to empower the Puerto Rican diaspora to become a political force in the United States.

And we will continue to say what should be abundantly clear today: any country that would elect and re-elect Donald Trump is not a country Puerto Rico should join, and the only just and politically feasible path for our nation is independence!

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