Delivering a message to Panama’s president over the weekend, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said China's business partnership with Panama likely violates the 1999 treaty that led the United States to turn the waterway over to Panama.
That treaty calls for permanent neutrality of the American-built canal, a vital 51-mile waterway that connects the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea.
The new Trump administration is taking action in Panama after China convinced Panama to sign an agreement in 2017 that pulled the Central American country into China’s controversial “Belt and Road Initiative.” That ambitious economic plan, overseen by the Chinese Communist Party, combines China’s handshaking diplomacy and communist thuggery with a goal to increase its trade and influence around the globe.
A 2021 article about China and the Panama Canal, by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, predicted a US.-China clash over the waterway. The U.S. is the top user of the Canal, with 66% of Canal cargo either exported from the U.S. or headed to a U.S. port, but China-owned businesses have dramatically increased their presence in and around both ends of the waterway.
In one stark example, the article said Chinese company Landbridge Group signed a $900 million deal to control Margarita Island, which is Panama’s largest port on the Atlantic side of the Panama Canal.
Rubio: U.S. 'will not' allow CCP control
After his visit to Panama, Rubio posted on X the United States “cannot, and will not, allow the Chinese Communist Party to continue with its effective and growing control over the Panama Canal area."
What was the result of Rubio’s visit? Panama’s president, José Raúl Mulino, said his country would not renew the agreement with China and would try to “build new relations” with the United States.
Washington Times columnist Robert Knight says he is impressed with President Trump’s efforts only three weeks into his term.
"Trump means what he says,” Knight tells AFN.
“That's why Secretary of State Marco Rubio went right down to Panama,” Knight continues. "To reinforce President Trump's wish that the Chinese no longer control the Panama Canal, or at least have undue influence over it on both ends of it.”
Looking weeks and months down the road, Knight predicts Americans will see more political wins that put the United States first.
“Because we finally have a president who puts America first, who puts the American people's interests first,” he says. “And the world is on notice."
