By Zaldy Dandan

The CNMI administration believes that, right now, the foremost matter affecting the islands’ relationship with the U.S. is the Commonwealth’s dire need for federal funding — tens of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars.

Here in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the contrast between the state of public education, public health, infrastructure, and living standards before and after the local economic boom of the late 1980s and early 1990s is astounding. The two are at opposite ends of the spectrum.

The local economy has been down since the imposition of Covid restrictions five years ago so there are talks, once again, of “diversificatio