The Panama leader rejects the statement of a state department on agreement for US warships for free crossing the Panaman Channel

Panama city – Panaman President José Raúl Mulino on Thursday rejected a statement from the US State Department that his country had reached a contract to allow US warships to transit the Panama Canal.

Mulino said that on Wednesday he told US defense Minister Pete Hegseth that he could not even determine the channel transit fees or excluded any of them and was surprised by the statement of the US State Department suggesting otherwise late Wednesday.

“I completely reject that statement yesterday,” Mulino said during his weekly press conference, adding that he had asked Panama’s ambassador to Washington to challenge a statement of a state department.

Wednesday night, American State Department said in a post on social networks: “The US government vessels can now pass the Panaman Channel without charge fees, saving the US government millions of dollars a year.” The department did not have a current comment on Mulin’s remarks on Thursday.

The Panaman Channel Administration announced its brief statement later on Wednesday night, saying that “did not adapt fees”, adding that “it was willing to establish a dialogue with relevant officials from the United States regarding transit by US Navy ships.”

Mulino said that the statement in the US “really surprises me because they make an important, institutional statement of an entity managing the external policy of the United States under the President of the United States based on falsehoods. And this is unbearable.”

Different versions arrived just a few days after the Secretary of State Marc Rubio met Mulin and canal administrators and visited the critical trade route. Transmitted the message of President Trump that China’s influence on the channel was unacceptable because Trump’s administration pushes for us canal controlwhich is says that US economic security is required.

The Panama Channel serves as a shortcut between the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean. And although the US has been conducting the construction of the main navigation path through which about 40% of the world’s cargo ship is now moving, its control is Data Panami in 1999.

At their meeting, Rubio told the Panaman leader that Mr. Trump found that the impact of China on the channel was “threatening the channel and represents a violation of the contract on permanent neutrality and the action of the Panaman Channel,” a spokesman said in a statement.

Mulino rejected these claims, and on Thursday he said that Panamine Constitution and the laws that regulate the body of the channel make it clear that neither the government nor the authorities could give up compensation.

“It’s a constitutional limit,” he said.