Roads to readiness: Territorial infrastructure is a strategic imperative

As the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee prepares to advance a new surface transportation reauthorization bill, Congress faces a consequential question: Are we prepared to invest in infrastructure not only as an economic necessity, but as a pillar of U.S. national security? For those of us representing America’s territories, particularly in the Indo-Pacific, the answer must be yes.

Too often, surface transportation debates in Washington focus narrowly on congestion, commuting times, or domestic commerce. Those are important issues. But for the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, transportation infrastructure carries a far greater strategic significance. Roads, ports, freight corridors, and logistics networks in the territories are essential to the U.S.’s military readiness, disaster response capabilities, and geopolitical posture in increasingly contested regions. That reality is especially clear in the CNMI.

Located in the Western Pacific, the Northern Mariana Islands sit in one