Secretary of State (Little) Marco Rubio visited Panama this weekend to warn President Jose Raul Mulino that Donald Trump’s perception that the Panama Canal is under Chinese control is a huge trade problem.
Mulino reportedly told Rubio that while the sovereignty of Panama was not negotiable, the country would not renew a 2017 agreement to join China’s overseas development initiative. Mulino also reportedly offered to end the existing agreement with China early.
Trump spoke with reporters and crapped on anything resembling diplomacy.
“China’s running the Panama Canal. That was not given to China, that was given to Panama, foolishly, but they violated the agreement, and we’re going to take it back, or something very powerful is going to happen.”
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China does not control the Panama Canal, though there are port operators at two terminals around the canal that are linked to a Chinese company. Mulino explained that there is currently an audit being carried out on the company. As CNN explains:
The company in question is the Panama Ports Company, part of a subsidiary of the Hong Kong-based conglomerate CK Hutchison Holdings. Hutchinson Ports is one of the world’s largest port operators, overseeing 53 ports in 24 countries, including for other US allies such as the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada.
As CNN has previously reported, Hutchison does not control access to the Panama Canal. Workers at their two ports only load and unload containers onto ships and supply them with fuel. Three other ports in the vicinity of the canal are operated by competing companies providing similar services.
Trump’s rhetoric concerning the Panama Canal ratcheted up shortly after he was elected to a second term in November. He accused Panama of charging “exorbitant rates” for the U.S. to use the canal and of Chinese influence. It just happens that all Trump’s complaining happens to coincide with an ongoing tax evasion lawsuit his businesses are embroiled in in Panama.
In 1977, President Jimmy Carter signed a treaty, relinquishing American control, guaranteeing its neutrality, and giving full ownership of the canal back to Panama at the end of 1999. In 1989, President George H. Bush ordered an invasion of Panama to capture the country’s military dictator Manuel Noriega. The excuse Bush gave for killing hundreds of Panamanian civilians in search of Noriega was to restore democracy, end drug trafficking, and protect the Panama Canal Treaties.
Sounds eerily familiar.
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