Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands go head-to-head on rum, fueling tensions in Congress: It's the preferred drink of Caribbean tourists and swashbuckling pirates alike, and now it's at the heart of a nasty political dispute: The rum wars have come to Washington.
A fight over federal rum taxes pits Puerto Rico against the U.S. Virgin Islands and is sparking rare public tensions among Hispanic and African American lawmakers in Congress.
Put simply, the argument involves whether tax dollars can be used to lure a Captain Morgan Rum distillery now located in Puerto Rico to the Virgin Islands, a project highly coveted for the tax revenue it promises.
The Virgin Islands, a relatively poor, majority-black territory of about 120,000 people, has promised nearly $3 billion in tax subsidies to the owner of Captain Morgan if it moves the rum-making operation to St. Croix, the largest of its three main islands. The money will come from rum taxes the U.S. government gives back to the territories; the Virgin Islands will use the rebates to help build a distillery for the company and provide it cash payments for the next 30 years.
