The President of Panama on Sunday rejected President-elect Donald Trump’s threat that if this happened, the US would ask the Central American country to give up control of the Panama Canal. Continued to charge “exorbitant” fees for using the vital shipping channel.
Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino pushed back against Trump’s suggestion that the US could seek to regain control of the century-old waterway when he takes office next month.
“I want to say with precision that every square meter of the Panama Canal and its surroundings is and will always remain Panamanian,” Mulino said in a statement. Posted on social media.
“The sovereignty and independence of our country cannot be compromised. Every Panamanian, here or anywhere in the world, bears it in his or her heart, and it is part of our history of struggle and irreversible conquest.
Trump first made noise about major thoroughfare on Saturday before addressing the topic again during a speech on Sunday At Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest.
“We are being robbed in the Panama Canal just like we are being robbed everywhere else,” he said before thousands in Arizona.
The U.S. built the canal in the early 1990s to help commercial and military ships travel between its coasts, but more than 20 years later, President Jimmy Carter signed a treaty with Panama in 1999. Gave up ownership of the waterway in.
Trump said, “If both the moral and legal principles of this generous gesture of giving are not followed, we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned completely, quickly and without question to the United States “
The Republican added, “I’m not going to stand for it.” “Then please direct the Panamanian authorities accordingly.”
Trump, 78, has already set his sights on areas of other countries, including mulling in recent weeks which he would like to see Canada became a US state,
He also floated the idea of buying Greenland, an autonomous region of Denmark, on Sunday when he announced PayPal co-founder Ken Howery as the US ambassador to the European country.
Mulino, who was elected in May, said on Sunday that the rates established for ships using the canal – which sees 14,000 ships pass through annually – are not set in an arbitrary manner.
“They will be installed publicly and to an open audience, taking into account market conditions, international circumstances, operating costs and the needs of maintenance and modernization of the transoceanic waterway,” he said.
He said, “We Panamanians may think differently in many aspects, but when it comes to our canal and our sovereignty, we are all united under the same flag, the flag of Panama.”
Following Mulino’s pledge to keep the canal under Panama’s direction, Trump responded on Truth Social, saying, “We’ll see about it!”
with post wires
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