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Panama’s government on Monday began an audit of a Hong Kong company that operates ports at either end of its canal, after US President Donald Trump warned he wanted to take back the waterway over alleged Chinese influence.
In his inauguration speech on Monday, Trump repeated criticisms he made in recent weeks over the Panama Canal, which handles about 3 per cent of global seaborne trade each year.
In response, Panama’s Office of the Comptroller General put up a video on X of about 10 men and women in suits filing off a bus into the local offices of Hong Kong-based Hutchison Ports to begin an audit, in a move seen as a nod to Trump.
“Today our auditors arrived at [the company] to start an exhaustive audit aimed at guaranteeing efficient and transparent use of public resources,” the comptroller general’s office said on X.
The company first won the concessions to operate two ports, one at each end of the canal in 1997, the year that Hong Kong was returned to Chinese rule by the UK. They were renewed in 2021.
Hutchison Ports, the ports arm of Hong Kong-listed conglomerate CK Hutchison Holdings, operates 53 ports in 24 countries including in the United Kingdom, Germany and Hong Kong.
Controlled by the family of Li Ka-shing — one of the richest families in Asia — CK Hutchison Holdings also operates a vast global infrastructure portfolio including Northumbrian Water in the UK and the Australian Gas Networks.
China does not control the canal, but some officials in Washington are increasingly concerned about Chinese companies’ presence in the area. Hong Kong’s government has become more closely aligned with China since a crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in 2019 and the introduction of a tough new national security law.
CK Hutchison did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Panama’s latest audit.
The US oversaw the building of the canal, which opened in 1914, but handed full control back to the Central American country in 1999. Trump has called the move a “mistake” and has decried the high fees.
Fees to cross the canal, which uses fresh water to operate its locks, have risen significantly since a major drought in 2023 led to restrictions and later changes in how slots are assigned.
“We have been treated very badly from this foolish gift that should never have been made,” Trump said. “We didn’t give it to China, we gave it to Panama and we’re taking it back.”
Panama has long been one of the US’s closest allies in Central America and has been trying to halt US-bound migration through its notorious Darién Gap. The country cut ties with Taiwan to recognise China during the first Trump presidency in 2017.
Panama’s President José Raúl Mulino — a law and order conservative — on Monday published a strongly worded statement “wholly rejecting” Trump’s words and saying that the canal will remain Panamanian.
He said that no nation interfered with the canal’s administration, and that dialogue was the best way to resolve the issues Trump mentioned. He also disagreed with Trump’s characterisation of the US returning the canal to Panama.
“The canal wasn’t given by anyone, it was the result of a generational fight that culminated in 1999,” he wrote on X.
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