It seems that State Secretary Marco Rubio on Sunday escalated the confrontation of Trump’s administration with Panama, saying to his leader that President Trump found that Chinese “influence and control” over the Panaman channel threatens the fruitful path and demanding “direct changes,” the State of the Department said
Panamine President, José Raúl Mulino, provided a different account of the discussion, saying that after the meeting, he believed that the gentleman Rubio had conveyed a threat that Mr. Trump could move to reconcile the US routine of shipping. He said he saw a little risk of such an intervention.
But President Trump, speaking to Andrews journalists in Maryland about the channel on Sunday, said we would “return it, or something very powerful will happen.”
State Department Summary of the meeting In the city of Panama, the first gentleman ruined with a foreign leader since he became a secretary of state, hit the tone that was sometimes aggressive. It was said that the gentleman Rubio had told his host that Mr. Trump had made a “preliminary decision” that the Chinese government had controlled over the channel.
“Secretary Rubio clearly said this status quo is unacceptable and that absent immediate changes will require the United States to take the measures necessary to protect his rights under the contract,” a spokeswoman for State Department, Tammy Bruce, said in a summary.
Mrs. Bruce did not determine what these measures could be. He asked last month if he would turn off the putting of military force behind his threats to regain the channel, which now controlled for almost a century, Mr. Trump refused to do so.
In an interview with journalists after meeting with Mr. Rubio, Mr. Mulino repeatedly raised the risk that Mr. Trump could take away the channel. “No doubt if the channel manages Panama and it will continue,” he said. “I think there was no deviation in that,” he said.
“I didn’t feel any threat,” Mr. Mulino said.
Mr Trump falsely claimed that China was “managing” the channel, which built the United States in the early 1900s, and the Americans managed most of the 20th century. The agreements reached under the administration of President Jimmy Carter transferred it to Panaman Control in 1999.
Mr. Trump and Mr. Rubio focused on the fact that a company headquartered in Hong Kong, CK Hutchison Holdings, manages sea ports on both ends of the waterway. They claim This represents a threat to national security of the United States, suggesting that the Chinese government could order a company to obstruct the shipping. Many experts are skeptical of this claim.
Mr. Rubio said Mr. Trump found that Chinese connection with the channel had violated a contract that should ensure his neutrality.
After Sunday, Mr. Mulino said that his government would decide which steps to take after receiving the results of the CK Hutchison audit, which he recently ordered. “We have to wait for this audit to be done to reach our own legal conclusions and act in accordance with,” said Mr. Mulino, told Mr. Rubiou. He suggested that this area in which it could be updated.
Mr. Trump is not the first US president to care for hostile interference in the channel. During the Second World War, the Roosevelt Administration acted on the defense of a fruitful path from Nazi sabotage plans. During the Cold War, the presidents died about the 1951 diplomatic cable from 1951. invited “Communist designs on the channel.”
Later on Sunday, Mr. Rubio traveled to the channel itself, visiting Miraflores locks near the city of Central Panama, where the sailors move along the 51 kilometer channel that connects the Pacific Ocean to the Caribbean Sea. There he was introduced to the canal administrator and visited an elevated control room, as a huge oil petrol tanker with a bright orange trunk and Korean letters approached.
Mr. Rubio visits five Latin American nations on his first trip abroad as Mr. Trump’s best diplomat. He plans to travel on Monday to El Salvador, and then to Kostarik, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic.
During the remarks of employees at the US Embassy in Panama, Mr. Rubio, son of Cuban migrants, joked that he told the assistants that he wanted to visit his first visit to “the place they speak Spanish, because I am me, because I am bilingual” after showing your language fluency.
Mr. Rubio acknowledged the complicated history of America with Panama, a former Colombian territory founded after the administration of President Theodor Roosevelt, observing the potential for a shortcut between the US Atlantic and Pacific coasts, supported the broken separatists who declared independence in 1903.
Mr Rubio noted that the country was “born in many ways here as a result of the interests of the United States,” and said that the connection had “ups and downs”. Downs include American invasion of Earth in 1989 to arrest the de facto ruler, General Manuel Noriega, on charges for drug trade and recovery.
On the eve of the visit of the Secretary of State, the Panama flags covered the streets of Panama and the former canal zone, where they were once banned during American controls.
Striking a warmer tone than in strict passages about the channel, the abstract of Mrs. Bruce said that the gentleman “thanked President Mulin for his support for the joint reputation program” which reduced migration through Darién JazA dangerous path between Colombia and Panama, which became a door for hundreds of thousands of migrants every year.
Mr. Mulino said that two men talked about the expansion of the July Agreement that Mr Mulino had made with the Biden administration aimed at gaping for the gap safety, and that Mr. Rubiou offered the use of airbags for the return of migrants. In his remark, Mr. Mulino said that last month there was a fall of 94 percent of the number of migrants passing through Darién Gap in Panama last month, compared to January 2024.
Mr. Mulino also said on Sunday that Panama, which in 2017 became the first country in the region to apply for a Chinese belt and road initiative, a far -reaching infrastructure program, would not renovate the agreement. He said that he hoped that the retreat would encourage the United States to take on a more active role in projects in Panama.
In recent years, Mr. Mulino said, the United States has left “a lot of empty space” for others to fulfill them. After announcing a draw from the Chinese program, Mr. Mulino said: “I think this visit opens the way to building a new era in relationships.”
Mary Triny Zea Contribute to reporting from Panama City.
