Best known for its beaches and culture, Puerto Rico is also considered by many to be a strategic stronghold, giving the U.S. a critical edge as China and Russia expand their presence in the Caribbean.
“Puerto Rico, being geo-strategically located, provides us, as part of the nation, to…buy-in to our national security and to ensure that our national assets can be positioned here for deterrence in the region,” said Secretary of Puerto Rico’s Department of Public Safety, Art Garffer, who also serves as Homeland Security Advisor.
Over the last decade, China and Russia have focused in on the Caribbean basin. Beijing has invested billions on trade and infrastructure deals, while also establishing a spy base in Cuba. Meanwhile, Moscow has taken a more threatening approach, with weapons sales, training, and joint military exercises.
“As recently as last November, October… major Russian joint exercises were conducted in the Caribbean Sea, where interesting enough, a nuclear submarine surfaced, and it was carrying hypersonic nuclear weapons,” Secretary Garffer told CBN News.
After years of growing their influence in the region, Garffer believes our adversaries are now getting too close for comfort.
“That whole southern area of the Caribbean Sea is now controlled or influenced by not necessarily friendly nations to the United States,” he said.
Andres Martinez-Fernandez, a senior policy analyst with the Heritage Foundation, points out China could now have the ability to disrupt critical trade routes.
“If there is a disruption in the ability to move goods, and even military equipment, and warships across them, it can have very significant consequences for the United States, and as kind of the risk of war over Taiwan increases, I think the United States is looking very seriously at what that means for Chinese presence and projection powers within our hemisphere,” he explained.
Secretary Garffer believes it’s time the U.S. took advantage of the geo-strategic positioning of Puerto Rico.
“We’ve got two deep sea ports, one on the eastern side, one on the southern side. We do have two of the longest runways in the Caribbean basin that we use for military purposes as well. So these sites can be used once again, even if in a limited capacity, to forward project from here over the horizon as a means to deter Russian and Chinese nuclear aggression into the region,” he said.
Garffer sees it as simply a matter of investing in and building out those facilities, a move that would benefit both national and domestic security.
“As drug trafficking organizations, violent extremist organizations, you know, transnational criminal organizations continue to shift and look for LOC’s, right, because the Southern border now from California all the way to Texas has been shut down… They have to see where they need to shift and move in order to keep their business going. So Puerto Rico could fall into that, that vector, or that area of approach into the United States,” Garffer pointed out.
As the Heritage Foundation prepares a new report on Puerto Rico, Martinez-Fernandez tells CBN News there’s an opportunity to restore the territory to the national security asset it once was.
“Puerto Rico can play a much bigger role, and I think there’s an important opportunity with new leadership on the island and the second Trump administration to really seize on that,” he said.
With China and Russia making moves in America’s backyard, experts say it’s time to invest in Puerto Rico, turning its strategic location into the defense hub the U.S. needs in the Caribbean.
