Puerto Rico is Trump's perfect partner in reshoring

The Hill

2 days ago

President Trump recently signed an executive order to bring pharmaceutical manufacturing back to the U.S. by streamlining the process for the Food and Drug Administration to approve pharmaceutical manufacturing plants. This is the latest in the Trump administration's agenda to protect national security and create American jobs by promoting the reshoring of critical supply chains that Americans rely on every day.
These efforts are coupled with international tariffs to encourage domestic manufacturing. Reshoring pharmaceutical manufacturing is not only dire for American national security, but it could have resounding economic impacts across the country.
One U.S. jurisdiction that is ready and in a perfect position to partner in this effort is Puerto Rico, where pharmaceutical manufacturing is already a more than $50 billion industry. With complementary efforts underway in Congress and on the island, the White House should look to Puerto Rico as America's pharmaceutical powerhouse while not trapping the island in its current territory status by hindering a future transition to statehood that would further boost the island's manufacturing ability.
As a territory, the island is part of the U.S. customs zone and is not subject to U.S. tariffs, and everything that is made in Puerto Rico is 'Made in the USA.' Yet, that same territory status has limited Puerto Rico's economic development by creating persistent uncertainty, underinvestment and an unequal playing field for economic competition. The territory status is unpopular on the island, and Puerto Rican voters have voted in favor of statehood four consecutive times, most recently last November.
Trump and Congress have the opportunity of a generation to leverage the pharmaceutical infrastructure and workforce in Puerto Rico to achieve their agenda while also turbocharging the economy on the island, and they have the perfect ally in Puerto Rico to do it with — the island's Republican Gov. Jenniffer González-Colón.
González-Colón is leading an ambitious agenda to reshape the national narrative about the island and its people — and ultimately achieve statehood for Puerto Rico. Aligning with the Trump administration's vision to reshore advanced manufacturing of critical products, she issued an executive order in late March and reached out to top White House officials to offer Puerto Rico's well-established, yet currently underutilized, manufacturing capacity as an economic engine to help grow American prosperity.
González-Colón's executive order promotes the relocation of overseas manufacturing of pharmaceuticals and other products to Puerto Rico. Much like Trump's executive order, it eliminates barriers and streamlines the process for businesses to move to the island. This action is complementary to the Medical Manufacturing, Economic Development and Sustainability Act, which was recently reintroduced and incentivizes pharmaceutical manufacturing on the island and throughout economically distressed zones across the United States.
The bill is designed to attract business to the island in a way that invests in the people of Puerto Rico. It does this by providing an incentive for medical manufacturing facilities to relocate to economically distressed zones, with an incentive dependent on the number of jobs created to ensure money is flowing back into communities.
The incentive itself is based on economic factors and applies to communities throughout the United States — an appropriately wide scope that comports with Trump's strong desire to reshore large amounts of production in a short time frame. By tethering the tax credits to what manufacturers invest directly into wages, salaries and real middle-class benefits, the proposal creates good-paying, quality American jobs.
Reshoring to Puerto Rico would mean that critical pharmaceuticals and medical devices, as well as other products that are currently manufactured overseas in China and other nations, would now be produced in America. This would create thousands of well-paying manufacturing jobs that Puerto Rico needs to turbocharge the modest economic progress it's made in recent years. The increased consumer demand on the island would help boost the approximately $70 billion in annual interstate commerce, resulting in more jobs and profits stateside.
Puerto Rico is a natural partner in reshoring the medical and pharmaceutical manufacturing industry within U.S. borders. The island's leaders share in the White House's vision of a more prosperous pharmaceutical manufacturing industry and are working to ensure reshoring efforts do not trap Puerto Rico in its current territory status but instead enable it to reach its full potential as an engine of economic growth and prosperity as a future state of our Union.
Manufacturing makes America stronger, especially when it lifts up communities and the hard-working American citizens that make 'Made in the USA' a possibility, including those in Puerto Rico.