President Donald Trump, in his second term, has exceeded all expectations. The series of executive orders that keep him ruling by fiat form an overwhelming tide, barely contained by a fragile dam raised by the courageous action of several district judges. His fierce and reckless political style has another component: Trump has defied the system, devising a co-government alongside billionaire tycoons like South Africa’s Elon Musk.
---
Lee este artículo en español.
---
This questionable choice of partners has raised the bar as high as his own ambition, to the point where the eccentric and bewildering Musk already overshadows Vice President J.D. Vance.
The Tesla and SpaceX founding mogul, as well as “owner-user” of the X network (formerly Twitter), leads the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team. The mission, as intense as the drive to colonize Mars, seeks to reduce the size of the federal administration by eliminating entire agencies and thousands of federal positions.
As we have pointed out in these pages, no one disputes the need to safeguard the responsible use of public resources, reduce unnecessary personnel in agencies and end the bureaucracy that hinders the development of plans and projects that benefit the community. However, a policy applied in “chainsaw” mode, as Argentine President Javier Milei has coined, ends up trampling on constitutional rights and arbitrarily affecting essential services for important sectors of our society.
Trump’s lack of decorum in style transcends his own standards. He has dismissed reasonable criticism that warns of the serious conflict of interest represented by Musk’s role as a fiscal agent of the state. Musk has access to confidential information that will allow him to gain an unfair advantage over those seeking to compete in their respective industries.
Elon Musk has revolutionized key industries, such as electric mobility and space exploration, but managing a government involves challenges that go beyond purely financial results.
Musk and other figures in the technology sector, such as the powerful investors Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen, who have effusively supported Trump, are grouped in the “builders” movement. As Alessandro Aresu relates in a lucid analysis in the magazine *The Grand Continent*, they are fervent advocates of an “accelerationist” USA that moves forward without being slowed down by regulations and that annihilates, in their view, unnecessary authorizations, in a vision that enjoys an unusual consensus in the American political and economic spectrum.
Puerto Rico will inevitably become entangled in this tangle of cuts and urgent savings. The first storm clouds are already appearing. Third sector organizations are horrified to see how essential programs, such as Casa Protegida Julia de Burgos, whose financing depends largely on federal funds, or Escape, which has been fighting child abuse for 42 years and which is subcontracted by the Department of the Family with federal funds, are in jeopardy.
The president’s irony in announcing the appointment of the education secretary reflects the radical nature of his tenure. Trump told Linda McMahon that she would be the first official to work to be furloughed. Her mission is to implode that agency. How this will hit the Puerto Rico Department of Education remains to be seen, but the repercussions are inevitable.
The same mystery surrounds the funds not yet released for the rebuilding of our critical infrastructure, including the electrical grid, as well as for the continuation of much-needed assistance programs for our people.
Governor Jenniffer González and Resident Commissioner Pablo José Hernández Rivera have the arduous task of overcoming this adverse scenario. They would do well to imitate the hundred or so NGOs that have already joined together to begin work considering the worst-case scenario, reactivating the People’s Task Force, as happened during the pandemic, so as not to wait with arms folded.
It is imperative to take proactive action that brings together all sectors of Puerto Rican society to join forces, promote initiatives and contain these actions of Donald Trump. We cannot resign ourselves before our time. It is an unavoidable commitment.
---
This content was translated from Spanish to English using artificial intelligence and was reviewed by an editor before being published.
