I AM reading that you have fallen to Republican pressure to include American Samoa in the new minimum wage hikes. As a 40-year resident of American Samoa, I can tell you, without doubt or reservation, that this action will cause total chaos and the end of life as we know it in American Samoa.
What a shame that politics and ill-informed decisions made by people who have no knowledge of the place or people these decisions will affect can result in the total breakdown of an economy with no possible future benefit. Read that sentence again so you might at least begin to understand it.
The U.S. has spent many hundreds of millions of dollars in American Samoa. The objective has always been to bring some semblance of equality to the islands through social and economic development.
We teeter on the brink of total economic collapse as the tuna canneries vacillate between staying and leaving. Their decisions are, of course, always based on issues of profitability. Their present minimum wage is now about five times that of their international competitors. Your congress saw fit recently to grant special tax incentives to the canneries in an attempt to convince them to stay in American Samoa.
Now you want to undo all that the U.S. has worked so hard to achieve here because you cannot stand the name calling directed at you by more ill-informed politicians. This is a weak response by someone we expected to bring us much higher standards of leadership skills.
Before this horrible example of political folly goes any further I suggest you take the time to learn the facts. There is much more to this than you might think.
Disappointed,

JOHN NEWTON
American Samoa