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US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told President Jose Raul Mulino on Sunday to reduce China's influence on Panama channel or face severe consequences.
Rubio met in Mulino in Panama and said that President Donald Trump decided that China posed a “threat to the channel” and violated a treaty related to its neutrality, according to a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry Tami Bruce.
Unless the situation changes, the United States “will take necessary measures to protect its rights under the treaty,” Bruce wrote.
“The United States cannot, and will not allow the Communist Party of China to continue its effective and increasing control over the Panama Channel area,” Rubio wrote on X.
Mulino, the conservative president of the conservatives in Panama, described Trump's previous demand that Chinese soldiers were running the channel as “nonsense” and insisted that the waterway “and will always remain in Panama.”
The United States has built a 82 -km channel that connects the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea region for more than a century and controlled it and its adjacent extension of the lands until a treaty signed in 1977 for the gradual delivery to Panama, which was completed in 1999.
The treaty guarantees the permanent neutrality of the channel and allows the United States to intervene if neutrality is violated.
Upon attacking Chinese influence, American critics in Panama focused on a port at both ends of the channel run by Hachceon Ports, a arm of Hong Kong's congregations listed in Hong Kong, under long concessions. They were renewed without bidding in 2021 for 25 years.
On Sunday, Mulino admitted our concerns about the ports and indicated that his government had launched a review of the port's concessions, which has about 40 percent of the share in the market, amid speculation in Panama that it may be canceled.
However, it is not clear whether the cancellation of Chinese concessions will be enough to please Trump, who was called “full rupture” and demanded the United States to restore the channel.
The Associated Press reported that about 200 people walked in the capital of Panama on Sunday, and carried national flags and screams “Marco Rubio from Panama” during the meeting of the Minister of Security in the United States. Some burned a banner with Trump and Rubio photos.
In another gesture towards the United States, Mulino said that Panama's participation in the Belt and Infrastructure Initiative in China will not be renewed, without giving an appointment for its end. Panama joined the belt and the road in 2017 when the diplomatic appreciation turned from Taiwan to China.
In recent years, the state -controlled Chinese companies have built a huge conference center near the channel's mouth and adopted a new bridge over the waterway and a tourist ship, contracts were secured through bids. Beijing was seeking to build a large new embassy on the ground near the channel until it killed the American objections.
At his meeting with Molino and Panaman Foreign Minister Javier Martinez Akha, Rubio also praised Panama's efforts to end illegal immigration and “emphasize the desire to obtain an improved investment climate and ensure a level stadium for fair competition by American companies,” according to Bros.
The number of immigrants crossing the Daryen forest illegally between Panama and Colombia – a major international migration road towards the United States in recent years – has decreased since Trump took office. The numbers decreased by 94 percent last month compared to the same month from the previous year, according to the National Migration Authority in Panama.
