‘This is sealed’: President Panama says there is no debate about the channel | News about politics
Panama will not negotiate the control of the strategic Panaman channel during the coming visit of Marc Rubi, says Jose Raul Mulino.
Panama President Jose Raul Mulino excluded a debate on control of the Panaman channel with a top -notch diplomat of the United States Marco Rubiowho is ready to visit the country of Central American.
On Thursday, Mulino also repeated his rejection of US President Donald Trump to manage the channel – which connects the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific Ocean – on China.
Trump has committed to take control of strategic waterways, which is crucial to trade.
“I can’t negotiate, even less open, the process of negotiating the channel,” Mulino told reporters. “It’s sealed. The channel belongs to Panami.”
Several US media reported that he would ruin Panama and other countries in the region in the coming days, in his first foreign trip as an American Secretary of State.
Now they helped the construction of the canal and controlled it when it was first completed in 1914, but the 1977 contract set a stage to surrender complete control over the 1999 waterways in Panama.
Trump made Acquiring channels of superior foreign policy priority, claiming without evidence that Panama floods US ships and enables Chinese military presence around the canal.
Asked earlier this month whether to exclude the use of military force to achieve this goal, Trump told reporters: “I will not commit to it.”
US President also emphasized the question during his inauguration speech.
“US ships are seriously overwhelmed and not treated fairly in any way, shape or shape, and this includes the Navy of the United States,” he said. “And above all, China manages the Panaman channel. And we didn’t give it to China, we gave it to Panami and bring it back.”
According to the Panaman Canal Administration, a waterway agency, the canal made almost $ 5 billion in revenue last year.
Mulino said on Thursday that Panama had not received any information from the USA “the alleged military presence of another country in the channel.”
“The Panama Canal controls Panama, and his administration has always been in Panaman hands,” he said.
Mulino added that Panama had other problems he spoke to with Rubio during his visit, including migration and drug trade.
Panama sits on the southern peak of Central America, bordering Colombia. Many of South America migrants travel to Panama to reach the US border.
The US was falling in Panama in 1989 to collapse the then president Manuel Noriegawho accused Washington of drug trafficking.
