A U.S. Coast Guard cutter is seen in port as people deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in San Juan, Puerto Rico. | Joe Raedle/Getty Images White House: Trump to allow foreign ships to supply Puerto Rico White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced the waiver Thursday morning via Twitter and said 'it will go into effect immediately.'

President Donald Trump will grant a 10-day waiver to the Jones Act to allow non-U.S.-flagged ships to transport supplies to Puerto Rico in a bid to speed the commonwealth's recovery from Hurricane Maria's devastation.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced the waiver Thursday morning via Twitter and said "it will go into effect immediately."


Puerto Rico had petitioned the Department of Homeland Security for a waiver as it struggles with shortages of water and fuel. The administration denied that request two days ago, and the president told reporters Wednesday that, "we have a lot of shippers and a lot of people and a lot of people who work in the shipping industry that don't want the Jones Act lifted."

Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló had continued to press the U.S. government for a waiver, including on morning cable news television on Thursday. Senate Republicans John McCain of Arizona and Marco Rubio of Florida also called for the relief, as did most congressional Democrats.

Later Thursday morning House Democrats pushed Trump for more.

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“The waiving of the Jones Act was a good idea, but we want to stretch it out to be longer than … 10 days,” Rep. Jose Serrano (D-N.Y.) said. “Much longer than that."

McCain and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) introduced legislation today to permanently exempt Puerto Rico from the Jones Act.

Lawmakers argued that more help was needed from the military as well, needling Trump over reports from Puerto Rico that there’s not enough support from the federal government to distribute supplies sitting in the capital of San Juan.

The military response continues to gradually ramp up after the repeated calls from Congress and the commonwealth government.

The deputy commander for the regional Department of Defense command coordinating relief efforts, Brig. Gen. Rich Kim, is scheduled to arrive in Puerto Rico on Thursday. The USS Comfort, a naval hospital ship, will depart Norfolk, Va., on Friday for Puerto Rico.

But that didn’t satisfy lawmakers calling for more.

In a letter sent Thursday afternoon, Rubio pushed for Trump to use his constitutional authority as commander in chief to increase the military’s involvement in coordinating disaster relief efforts.

“There is no clear command, control, and communication between local officials on the ground and federal agencies, and many roads and bridges remained unpassable, making it even more difficult for repair crews to restore power and communications to areas of the island outside of San Juan,” Rubio wrote. That has resulted in "lifesaving supplies sitting in containers rather than being distributed upon arrival," he wrote.

“This unique situation requires a well-coordinated response led by the Department of Defense (DOD), which is the only entity capable of executing a recovery effort of this scale and complexity," he said. "I urge you, as commander-in-chief, to make DOD the lead agency in the ground phase of recovery efforts.”

“We have the resources,” said Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-N.M.), referring to the U.S.

The number of Americans affected by Hurricane Maria in the Caribbean is equivalent to “the combined populations of the states of Wyoming, Vermont and Alaska,” she added. “I have no doubt that the responses to those states in this situation would be far different than the situation we’re having today.”

Several states have offered to help deploy their own personnel to help Puerto Rico, and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus chair said House Democrats were looking for ways to expedite that.

In an interview with CBS, Rene Plasencia, a Republican in the Florida state house who accompanied emergency responders to Puerto Rico, said those responders could not get transportation from officials on the ground to provide help.

“We’ve been trying to get [rescue] planes in [from Florida] since last Friday,” Plasencia said.

Democrats also criticized Trump’s remarks earlier this week that delivering emergency supplies to Puerto Rico is difficult because it’s an island.

“Well, you built a golf course there so you certainly knew where it was,” Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) said. He was referring to a Trump brand golf course that went bankrupt a few years after the president began his involvement with the project, leaving the commonwealth government on the hook for millions in debt.

“Mr. President, talk to your national security team,” Serrano said. “They certainly had plans for 50 years to invade an island in the Caribbean,” he said, referring to Cuba. “So they know how to get troops and the military into an island.”

Talk has already begun in Congress around an aid package. Some on the left want a suspension of the law that Congress passed last year to allow the commonwealth to restructure its $70 billion in bond debt that also instituted an unpopular federal oversight board. But Republicans, who have promised ample disaster relief funding when a request comes from the Trump administration, would likely reject that.

Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-N.Y.) estimated that $50-$70 billion would be needed to rebuild Puerto Rico, and Gutierrez pushed for the federal government to pick up the total bill for the cash-strapped island, likening it to a sick patient in the hospital.

“It’s bankrupt,” Gutierrez said. “There is no money in Puerto Rico to make copayments.”

"This is Katrina 2017," he said.

Seung Min Kim contributed to this report.

