{"id":14969,"date":"2025-02-02T21:47:41","date_gmt":"2025-02-02T21:47:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=14969"},"modified":"2025-02-02T21:47:41","modified_gmt":"2025-02-02T21:47:41","slug":"us-demands-panama-reduce-chinese-influence-over-canal-or-face-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=14969","title":{"rendered":"US demands Panama reduce Chinese influence over canal or face action"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> \n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__content-sign-up-topic-description\">Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world<\/p>\n<p><iframe class=\"article__content-sign-up-iframe close\" scrolling=\"no\" id=\"signUpIframe\" data-prev-url=\"\/register\/in-article-sign-up?ft-content-uuid=b34809e3-3f59-4b05-9caf-27e2f781e7b8&amp;newsletter-id=65b8fec772badb00166eafc6\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div id=\"article-body\">\n<p>US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Panamanian President Jos\u00e9 Ra\u00fal Mulino on Sunday to reduce China\u2019s influence over the Panama Canal or face immediate consequences.<\/p>\n<p>Rubio met Mulino in Panama City and said President Donald Trump had determined that China posed \u201ca threat to the canal\u201d and had violated a treaty concerning its neutrality, according to state department spokesperson Tammy Bruce. <\/p>\n<p>Unless the situation changed, the US would \u201ctake measures necessary to protect its rights under the Treaty,\u201d wrote Bruce.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe United States cannot, and will not, allow the Chinese Communist party to continue with its effective and growing control over the Panama Canal area,\u201d wrote Rubio on X.<\/p>\n<p>Mulino, Panama\u2019s conservative pro-business president, has described a previous Trump claim that Chinese soldiers were operating the canal as \u201cnonsense\u201d and has insisted the waterway \u201cis and always will be Panama\u2019s\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The US built the 82km canal connecting the Pacific and the Caribbean more than a century ago and controlled it and an adjacent stretch of territory until it signed a treaty in 1977 for a gradual handover to Panama, which was completed in 1999. <\/p>\n<p>The treaty guarantees the permanent neutrality of the canal and allows the US to intervene if neutrality is violated.<\/p>\n<p>When attacking Chinese influence, US critics of Panama have focused on two ports at either end of the canal which are run by Hutchison Ports, an arm of Hong Kong-listed conglomerate CK Hutchison Holdings, under long concessions. They were renewed without a bidding process in 2021 for 25 years.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Mulino on Sunday acknowledged US concerns over the ports and noted that his government had launched an audit of the port concessions, which have a nearly 40 per cent market share, amid speculation in Panama that they may be cancelled. <\/p>\n<p>It is not clear, however, whether the cancellation of the Chinese concessions would be sufficient to satisfy Trump, who has called the canal fees \u201ca complete rip-off\u201d and demanded that the US take back the canal.<\/p>\n<p>About 200 people marched in Panama\u2019s capital on Sunday, carrying national flags and shouting \u2018Marco Rubio out of Panama\u2019 while the US secretary\u2019s meeting was going on, the Associated Press reported. Some burnt a banner with images of Trump and Rubio.<\/p>\n<p>In another gesture towards the US, Mulino said Panama\u2019s participation in China\u2019s Belt and Road infrastructure initiative would not be renewed, without giving a date for its expiry. Panama joined Belt and Road in 2017 when it switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China.<\/p>\n<p>In recent years, Chinese state-controlled companies have built a huge convention centre close to the mouth of the canal and are constructing a new bridge over the waterway and a cruise ship port, contracts that were secured through bidding processes. Beijing was seeking to build a big new embassy on land near the canal until US objections killed the scheme.<\/p>\n<p>In his meeting with Mulino and Panamanian foreign minister Javier Mart\u00ednez-Acha, Rubio also praised Panama\u2019s efforts to end illegal migration and \u201cunderscored the desire for an improved investment climate and ensuring a level playing field for fair competition by US firms,\u201d according to Bruce.<\/p>\n<p>The number of migrants illegally crossing the Dari\u00e9n jungle between Panama and Colombia \u2014 a major international migration route towards the US in recent years \u2014 has plunged since Trump took office. Numbers were down 94 per cent last month compared with the same month a year earlier, according to Panama\u2019s national migration authority. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/b34809e3-3f59-4b05-9caf-27e2f781e7b8\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":14970,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","cs-entry","cs-video-wrap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}