“IT’s mind-boggling how Chinese tourists are welcomed in the United States of America and good for the American economy, but it is a national security risk for the CNMI,” U.S. delegate candidate Kimberlyn King-Hinds said.
“What is happening today is foreseeable,” she added referring to the CNMI tourism industry’s current challenges.
In a statement issued on Thursday she said, “Right after Governor Arnold I. Palacios was inaugurated, my first words to him were that his success is the CNMI’s success, and I was going to … in any way I can … help him succeed.”
According to the former Commonwealth Ports Authority board chair, one of their first official discussions with the Palacios-Apatang administration in late January 2023 was the new airport rates.
CPA has a federal mandate to be self-sustainable, and the new rate methodology ensures that CPA can pay for its personnel and operations, she said.
“CPA also knew that absent a subsidy, these new rates will make it cost prohibitive to fly to the CNMI and that is why on April 17, 2023, CPA sent a letter to U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg requesting for additional supplemental operational funds in the amount of 30 million dollars and explained to him the cascading impact these new rates will have on CPA and the CNMI’s economy if we did not get any assistance in the absence of more tourists,” King-Hinds added.
“I wrote a letter to Governor Palacios and spoke to him numerous times begging for him to support CPA’s request and even drafted a letter on his behalf, but he never signed off on it and never supported the request,” King-Hinds said.
“The fact is, we need more tourists … and our Governor [Palacios] is not willing to lift a finger to pursue all markets. He was asked to apply for the Annex VI exemption, and he refused. Because CPA needs more tourists … to bring down the rates, it pursued the exemption on its own,” she said.
The Saipan Chamber of Commerce and the Hotel Association of the NMI have also been urging the governor and the current CPA officials to apply for the reinstatement of the Annex VI provision of the U.S.-China Air Transport Agreement of July 9, 2007, which exempts the CNMI from the flight frequency limitations between the U.S. and China.
U.S. Congressman Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan and Senate President Edith Deleon Guerrero have made similar requests to the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Without Annex VI, chamber members said the implementation of the CNMI Economic Vitality & Security Travel Authorization Program or EVS-TAP in October 2024 will be useless.
EVS-TAP will allow pre-screened Chinese nationals to travel to the CNMI visa-free for up to 14 days. Chinese visitors must fill out an electronic version of Form I-736 under EVS-TAP and submit it online to Customs and Border Protection at least five days in advance of their arrival to the CNMI.
King-Hinds said Palacios can continue to blame her personally as former CPA chair for raising the airport rates, “and his surrogates can continue to personally attack me, but at the end of the day I’ve done everything within my power and authority to answer the call for help from our business community.”
“The decisions that CPA has made under my tenure as CPA chair, have been data- and business-driven with input from subject-matter experts in the industry in compliance with federal requirements,” King-Hinds added.
“Governor Palacios can’t say that he doesn’t know or that it wasn’t foreseeable that all of this was going to happen because I’ve met and spoken to him several times personally. I have been on the news and have written letters to the federal government about this issue. I went as far as attempted to coordinate a door-knocking trip to Washington, D.C. with him, the Governor of Guam, Guam [International] Airport Authority, Department of Defense and the Saipan Chamber of Commerce while I was the CPA chair, but he refused.
“At this point, the path to total economic collapse is his choice,” King-Hinds said.
