Gov. Arnold I. Palacios talks to reporters during a press conference at his office on Capital Hill.
THE CNMI will bring up the same issues but with a “different approach” once the bilateral consultations with the U.S. as provided by Section 902 of the Covenant resume under the Trump administration, Gov. Arnold I. Palacios told reporters on Thursday.
Section 902 talks between the CNMI and the U.S. took place at the U.S. Courthouse in Gualo Rai last year with the representative of then-President Joe Biden, Interior Assistant Secretary for Insular and International Affairs Carmen G. Cantor. The governor headed the CNMI panel.
When the talks resume with President Donald Trump’s representative, the CNMI panel will not “start from scratch,” Palacios said.
He said he will ask President Trump to form a new U.S. team and “we might have to brief them on [the previous] conversations.”
The CNMI wants the discussions to focus on the following topics:
1) Direct financial assistance under Section 702 of the Covenant.
2) Tourism and transportation infrastructure.
3) Access to skilled labor.
Palacios expressed confidence about the resumption of the 902 talks despite the “new faces” on the U.S. panel.
“The key team people that were on the 902 talks are career individuals. So the conversation is still going to be there and they’ll sit there, and will provide a background of the discussions that we have had with Assistant Secretary Cantor,” the governor said.
Asked if he expects a change in the position of the U.S. panel on the issues already discussed, the governor said, “I don’t think so.”
“Maybe the approach is going to be different, but the issues are going to be the same. We are only looking at what is in our Covenant agreement and, regardless of party affiliation, the issues are going to be the same. And it’s not going to change. But how [we are] going to approach it, and who we talk to is going to be [a] little bit different and we’ll see,” Palacios said.
He said he doesn’t think it is going to take long to review the previous discussions “because a lot of the folks that were involved in the discussion level, the legal and financial folks, are still in there. And most likely, will be [there] at least [until] the president’s representatives have [a] completely new team. But the issues are still going to be the same and then we are going to say, this is how far we got in this discussion. And this is where we want to go, going forward.”
“We will do whatever is necessary,” Palacios said. “If we have to go back and repeat the discussions, that’s fine.”
He recalled that last year, the final round of the talks pertained to Section 702 of the Covenant, which once provided the CNMI with nearly $28 million annually in direct U.S. financial assistance for economic development.
“That [funding request] is not going to change. We are still going to go in and have the same discussion,” the governor said.
