By Rep. Vincent R. Aldan
24th CNMI Legislature
THE CNMI cannot afford policies that sound good on paper but make survival harder in real life.
This is not about politics. This is not about choosing business over workers, or workers over business. This is not about being for or against foreign labor, tourism programs, federal rules, or any one agency. This is about one thing: whether the CNMI can realistically survive and recover under the policies being imposed on it.
The CNMI is a small island economy. We are not a mainland state. We are not Guam. We do not have a massive labor pool, a large consumer market, or the same economic cushion as larger jurisdictions. We are heavily dependent on tourism, imported goods, outside investment, and a labor system shaped by our geographic isolation and limited workforce availability. That reality matters.
When federal laws, rules, and regulations are applied to the CNMI in the same way they are applied to much larger economies, the result can be devastating. Rules involving labor access, visitor access, prevailing wage, and workforce restrictions may have understandable goals. But when those rules are too rigid, too costly, too slow, or too disconnected from island reality, they do not strengthen the CNMI. They weaken it.
The people of the CNMI deserve an honest conversation about this.
Businesses here are not operating in theory. They are operating in a fragile, high-cost environment where every payroll cycle, every delay, every permit, every filing fee, and every lost customer matters. When a business is forced to pay thousands of dollars for worker-related processing, only to face delays and repeated renewals that destroy the value of that investment, that is not efficiency. That is dysfunction.
When tourism access is restricted in a tourism-driven economy, that is not a minor issue. That affects hotel occupancy, transportation, restaurants, retail, tour operators, service providers, and the many families whose livelihoods depend on visitor spending.
When labor costs continue to rise while economic recovery remains weak, businesses are forced into impossible decisions: reduce hours, freeze hiring, postpone expansion, cut services, or close their doors entirely. And when businesses suffer, workers suffer too.
That is the truth too often ignored in public debate.
Business cannot pay higher wages without revenue. A worker cannot benefit from wage policy if the job disappears. An economy cannot recover if policies continue to squeeze it from both ends: less money coming in, and more cost going out.
This is why the CNMI must stop being treated as if one-size-fits-all policy will somehow produce one-size-fits-all results. It will not.
What may be manageable in a large state can be crushing in a small island territory. What may be a regulatory inconvenience elsewhere can become an economic emergency here. That is not an excuse. That is reality.
Even the concerns being raised by long-time business owners regarding minimum wage increases must be understood in that light. This is not simply about opposition to higher wages. It is about whether businesses in the CNMI are in a position to absorb additional payroll costs at a time when tourism remains fragile, operating costs remain high, and overall economic recovery is still uncertain.
The CNMI does not need more policies detached from local conditions. The CNMI does not need more pressure without practical solutions. The CNMI does not need economic decisions made as if our islands are no different from anywhere else.
What the CNMI needs is balance. What the CNMI needs is flexibility. What the CNMI needs is policy grounded in facts, not assumptions.
The proper question is simple: Does this policy help the CNMI survive, recover, and grow? Or does it make survival harder? That question should apply to everything: labor policy, wage policy, visitor policy, economic policy, and federal policy.
Because at the end of the day, the people of the CNMI are not asking for special favors. We are asking for common sense. We are asking for decision-makers to recognize that a fragile island economy cannot thrive under systems that are too rigid, too expensive, too slow, and too disconnected from the conditions on the ground.
If a policy makes it harder to hire, harder to keep businesses open, harder to attract visitors, harder to control costs, and harder for families to get ahead, then it is not enough to say the policy had good intentions.
Good intentions do not pay payroll. Good intentions do not fill hotel rooms. Good intentions do not keep stores open. Good intentions do not sustain an economy.
The CNMI needs practical solutions that protect workers, support responsible employers, restore tourism, encourage investment, and reflect the actual economic reality of our islands.
That is not an extreme position. That is a reasonable one. And it is time for that message to be heard clearly, publicly, and without apology.
