Panama President José Raúl Mulino on Wednesday accused US President Donald Trump of lying when he said on his Tuesday Obligation to a common session of Congress that his administration “returned” the Panaman Channel.
Mr. Trump referred to An agreement announced on Tuesday For a consortium conducted by US BLACKROCK Inc. Inc. Management Company In order to buy a control stake in a company held by a headquartered group in Hong-Kong, which manages ports near both ends of the Panama Canal. The announcement was followed by the president cited Chinese interference with surgery of critical shipbuilding.
Panama claims that he has complete control of the channel and that the work of the Honf Congo’s headquarters did not present Chinese control over the waterways, and that the sale of a headquarters in the United States would not represent any US “return” channel. The Panaman government called sales on Tuesday with a private transaction.
Mulino, In a message published on x On Wednesday, he rejected that the deal came for pressure in the US. “I reject on behalf of Panama and all the Panamanians, this new theme of truth and our dignity as a nation,” he wrote in a post translated from Spanish. He accused Mr. Trump of “lying again.”
“The Panaman Channel is not in the renovation process, which is certainly not a task that was even discussed in our conversations with Secretary Rubio or anyone else,” Mulino continued. CBS News The fact checked the president’s remarks to the Congress herereviewing his claims about the Panama Channel with other questions.
Mr. Trump has Talked about the re -work of the Panaman Channel Since their campaign, claiming that the US should never have transferred control of Panamani and that they were now overwhelmed for use. Mulino earlier rejected publicly The statement of the US State Department that its country has reached a contract to allow us to transport the warships to the Panaman Channel for free. The Panaman leader said in early February that he told the Minister of Defense to Pete Hegseth that he could not determine the channel transit fees, nor had he released anyone from them, adding at a time when he was surprised that State Department had issued a statement that suggests otherwise.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio at about the same time met with Mulin and insisted that China had an impact on channel surgery. The focus was a Chinese consortium leading Luke. Panama rejected that China had an impact on channel operations.
“The cooperation between our governments is through clear understanding in terms of questions of mutual interest,” Mulino wrote. “It has nothing to do with the” channel return “or the outline of our national sovereignty.”
In the application, CK Hutchison Holding said on Tuesday that he would sell all the shares at Hutchison Port Holdings IU Hutchison Port Group Holdings to a Blackkock Consortium in a contract worth almost $ 23 billion, including $ 5 billion in debt.
The agreement must be approved by the Panama Government.
The United States built a channel in the early 1900s because they sought ways to facilitate the transit of commercial and military vessels between its shores. Washington left the control of the water trip to Panama on December 31, 1999, under a contract signed by President Jimmy Carter in 1977. Mr. Trump claimed that Carter “stupid” gave the canal.
Frank Sixt, Director of Management of CK Hutchison, said in a statement that the transaction was “the result of a fast, discreet but competitive process in which numerous offers and terms of interest were received.”
“I would like to emphasize that the transaction is a purely commercial nature and completely unrelated to the recent reports of political news concerning Luka Panama,” Sixt said.
