Panamanian leader says sale of a Chinese company’s port operation to a US firm does not amount to retaking the waterway.
Panama President Jose Raul Mulino has accused his American counterpart, Donald Trump, of lying when he told members of Congress that the United States is “reclaiming” the Panama Canal.
In a statement posted on X on Wednesday, Mulino said the man-made waterway that connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans “is not in the process of recovery” by Trump and the US government.
“Once again, President Trump is lying,” Mulino wrote on X.
“I reject, on behalf of Panama and all Panamanians, this new affront to the truth and to our dignity as a nation,” Mulino added.
During the annual presidential address to the US Congress on Tuesday, Trump declared that Washington would be reclaiming the Panama Canal “to further enhance” US national security.
“We’ve already started doing it. We’re taking it back.”
He was referencing a deal announced on Tuesday for a consortium, led by the US investment management company BlackRock Inc, to buy a controlling stake in the company held by a Chinese group that operates ports at both ends of one of the busiest water channels in the world.
In a filing, CK Hutchison Holding had announced that it would sell all shares in Hutchison Port Holdings and in Hutchison Port Group Holdings to BlackRock in a deal valued at nearly $23bn, including $5bn in debt.
The deal has to be approved by Panama’s government.
Trump has been talking about retaking the Panama Canal since his campaign, arguing the US should have never turned control over to the Panamanians and that the US was being overcharged for using it.
Since returning to the White House, he has also started complaining that China controls the canal, and did not rule out a military invasion to regain control of it.
Panama maintains it has full control over the canal and that the Hong Kong-based group’s operation of the ports did not amount to Chinese control over the waterway, and therefore the private sale to a US-based company would not represent any US “reclaiming” of the canal.
In February, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Mulino and insisted that China was exerting influence over the canal’s operations.
Panama rejected that China had any influence over canal operations. Beijing has also consistently denied interfering in the canal.
The US built the canal in the early 1900s as it looked for ways to facilitate the transit of commercial and military vessels between its coasts.
Washington relinquished control of the waterway to Panama on December 31, 1999, under a treaty signed in 1977 by President Jimmy Carter. Trump has claimed that Carter “foolishly” gave the canal away.
The 80km (50-mile) canal handles 5 percent of global maritime trade and 40 percent of US container traffic.