The only reason why I might disagree with this is 1) if we truly need PR as a naval/military base or 2) if there's a real chance that an enemy (China,Russia,Venezuela,Cuba,etc) might succeed in filling the vacuum created by our departure.
Statehood? No way,Jose! Independence? Maybe,maybe not.It could well be that the current arrangement is the least harmful to the US of the three options available.
Any other island (including desperate Cuba) would allow us to open naval bases, though I’m not sure what they offer that Florida islands don’t.
As far as Red China, etc. filling a vacuum, they are already entrenched in Cuba and Venezuela. If they couldn’t be bothered with Haiti, they probably couldn’t be bothered with Puerto Rico.
“The only reason why I might disagree with this is 1) if we truly need PR as a naval/military base or 2) if there’s a real chance that an enemy (China,Russia,Venezuela,Cuba,etc) might succeed in filling the vacuum created by our departure.”
That’s BS. There’s a slew of other Caribbean islands that our enemies could use as bases if they had the desire to. I doubt that an independent PR would want to get on our bad side. And PR kicked our base out of Vieques just a few years ago. We need them like a hole in the head. Give them their freedom.