Hacker News Reader

Comment by derektank | Hacker News Reader

>From the US point of view, this is a good program because it incentivizes people from the Marshall Islands to stay put rather than emigrate to the US mainland

Why is this a good thing? Naively, as an American citizen, I would rather have someone emigrate and work in America where they can provide additional labor to the mainland economy

View on HN

The US is competing with China in the Pacific. Keeping those islands healthily populated by USA-sympathizers helps maintains overall US influence in the region.

The Marshall Islands are of military importance, we don't squat in the island chain for economic gain.

This seems like a non sequitur? The US military can staff its own bases without relying upon native labor, as it does in places like Diego Garcia

Are you proposing that the best solution for the island and its native population for them to all emigrate to mainland US and leave the island chain exclusively to the US military?

My point had nothing to do with what the native population does on the island or what they may do for work, only that we didn't claim the island chain for the labor resources of the population (as insinuated by the comment I replied to).

My original comment (which, incidentally, did not insinuate that we claimed the island for labor resources. I have no idea where that came from.) was a question asking why the US government would want to discourage Marshall Islanders from emigrating to the US, as a matter of policy. I still don’t see a direct relationship between US defense interests in the region and deterring emigration.

> I would rather have someone emigrate and work in America where they can provide additional labor to the mainland economy

This is what I responded to. Whether the initial intent or not, it makes the case that we would be better off with the native population emigrating to the mainland and providing the economy with economic value.

As said above, you want the population (the ones that run the government right?) to stay there and happy, so that the bases are welcome and symbolic.

Presumably if AI reaches it's potential there might not be a need for immigrants labor.

I am very confident that this has not historically been, and is not today, a major or minor consideration in US foreign policymaking

Reply on news.ycombinator.com