Trump says Puerto Rico's debt will have to be wiped out

President Donald Trump said on Tuesday while on a trip to Puerto Rico to observe hurricane recovery efforts that the island's massive debt will have to be wiped out.

"They owe a lot of money to your friends on Wall Street and we're going to have to wipe that out. You're going to say goodbye to that, I don't know if it's Goldman Sachs but whoever it is you can wave goodbye to that," Trump said in an interview with Fox News.

Puerto Rico, which earlier this year filed the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. municipal history, is struggling to regain economic stability in the face of a $72 billion debt load and near-insolvent public health and pension systems.

(Reporting by Eric Beech in Washington; Editing by Eric Walsh)