Gov. Palacios: the CNMI’s last best hope?

I was in awe of Arnold Palacios, who passed away on July 23. Having spent a good part of my career dealing with public and private corruption, I never once saw a top official ask to be investigated, and mean it.

That takes courage and, ultimately, a deep love for one’s constituents and country.

Imagine, for example, the mayor of Chicago asking the feds to come and examine the city’s books. That request will never happen.

But it did happen in the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands.

Corruption is, of course, not rare in CNMI, and no sane person pretends otherwise.

Gov. Palacios’ own words tell his story. In a presentation at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington in 2024, he described how, when he came into office, he tried to find out what happened to around $1.6 billion in federal funding (CARES, ARPA, etc.) that had been given to the CNMI, (population around 45,000) during the pandemic era.

As he said: “the last thing we want to do, or want to see, is for the CNMI community to suffer over a long period of time because of some of the careless squandering, or even criminal squandering, of resources that were given to us by the federal government. We saw it, I saw it, a lot of people in the community saw it happening. And so, we wanted that to be validated by a robust financial investigation. We needed to come clean. I wasn’t about to cover up all these things.”

The governor repeatedly asked federal agencies to help. On April 24, 2025, he asked CNMI Del. Kimberlyn King-Hinds to ask FBI Director Kash Patel to do “intensive investigations of public corruption” in CNMI, mentioning he has “considerable evidence to provide.“

In the FDD interview, he said the situation left him feeling like “John the Baptist out in the desert. That’s how lonely it has been.”

That’s also astonishing bravery.

Indeed, Arnold Palacios’ briefing and comments at FDD should be required viewing for all elected members of Congress and state legislatures in the United States.

A word about Director Patel’s shutting down investigations into former CNMI Gov. Ralph Torres, the Imperial Pacific casino, and related matters in July 2025 was perplexing and stupid. This decision needs to be reexamined.

There’s more to all this than just ‘local’ corruption.

Gov. Palacios recognized the threat posed by China to CNMI and the United States.

How right was he? The U.S. Congress’ China Select Committee, which has access to “all the intelligence,” issued a rare statement of condolence on learning of Gov. Palacios’ death, saying in part, “He was a devoted public servant and a true patriot who courageously stood against Chinese coercion, steadfastly defending the sovereignty of the CNMI and the American homeland. His principled leadership and unwavering dedication to his people will leave a lasting legacy and will not be forgotten.”

Chinese investment always appears as a panacea solving one’s economic woes, but it invariably leads to corruption, crime and a local constituency that is beholden to China’s interests.

You’d think CNMI’s long experience with Chinese casinos—most recently Imperial Pacific on Saipan, which came after the earlier garment industry debacle—might have opened some eyes. Still, there’s a push for more and more and unvetted, or poorly vetted, Chinese investment in the CNMI, as if there are no dangers and no alternatives, but there are.

This is all part of China’s political warfare intended to subvert societies and to insert Chinese influence. Get in the way and expect to be fiercely attacked, as Gov. Palacios was, and as former Federated States of Micronesia President David Panuelo and former Malaita Premier Daniel Suidani can attest.

Chinese proxies are rife in the CNMI, throughout the Pacific and in Washington D.C. itself. They’ve been in place for years and their tentacles are everywhere.

Now, the one man who had the character, inside experience and clout to stop them in CNMI is gone.