They have no "national debt" apart from the US national debt.
They have public debt, like any (US) state would have. You could term it "government debt." I prefer "public" because it drives home that while the debt was taken out by government officials, it was done on behalf of and usually with the permission of the public. "We the people" and all that.
(Remember this next time you hear somebody else say something that requires that they fervently believe that Puerto Rico isn't part of the US and consequently feel the need to lecture them long and hard on the point. Speech errors happen because we don't pay attention to every detail adequately--hardly a failing unique to any one of us--and because we grope for the necessary term and pull up the wrong one, even assuming we actually know the correct one. This isn't said because of any special problem with what you said or out of ill will, but just to point out to anybody else reading that this kind of trivial error is easy to make, widespread, and easily misconstrued given a modicum of ill will and blown up into an animosity-generating mess. I've been called out in nasty ways for misspeaking by others, of course, and not in nearly such civil terms.)
As for its being a loan, that's often the case with a lot of emergency aid. Some is loan, some isn't. You have to speak about what the funding source is and the use of the funds before you can reliably predict which is and which isn't.
Beaumont will get emergency aid for repairing its water treatment plant. That will be grant. Probably all of it.
A business will get emergency aid for rebuilding and restocking. Most of that will be loan. It will be low-interest and long-term, but loan nonetheless. Some will be grant.
= new reply since forum marked as read
