ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the economic and technological setting for Puerto Rico's transformation experience. The US private sector would have a secure host site for offshore industrialization and investment would yield higher than usual profits and dependable profit repatriation. The expansion of tariff protection to Puerto Rico and the creation of fully integrated US/Puerto Rico trade territory, made sugar and tobacco production highly attractive to the US private sector. The location of Puerto Rico converted the island into a key base to organize the defense of the Spanish galleons throughout the Americas, which were under constant attack by pirates. The original strategy, of an economic drive based on processing native materials for worldwide distribution, was challenged by the discoveries of the geologic survey, which identified only silica and some minor clay deposits. The Apparel Industry played a major role during the whole liftoff stage of Operation Bootstrap.
