Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino stated this morning that U.S. President Donald Trump was being untruthful when he claimed that his administration was “reclaiming” the Panama Canal.
Trump’s remarks to Congress followed the announcement of a deal led by U.S. company BlackRock to acquire the majority of the $22.8 billion ports business of Hong Kong conglomerate CK Hutchison, which includes assets along the Panama Canal.
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The sale to a U.S.-based business would not constitute any U.S. “reclaiming” of the canal, according to Panama, which maintains complete sovereignty over the waterway and that the Hong Kong-based group’s administration of the ports did not amount to Chinese control over the waterway. The sale was referred to be a private transaction recently by the Panamanian administration.
Mulino denied that U.S. pressure led to the agreement in a statement sent to X formerly known as Twitter. He said, “I reject in the name of Panama and all Panamanians this new affront to the truth and our dignity as a nation,” in the Spanish-language post. Mr. Trump, he said, was “lying again.”
“The Panama Canal is not in the process of being restored, and this is certainly not the task that was even discussed in our conversations with Secretary Rubio or anyone else,” said Mulino. The president’s statements before Congress were fact-checked by media experts, which looked at his assertions on the Panama Canal as well as other topics.
Since his campaign, Mr. Trump has discussed regaining control of the Panama Canal, claiming that the United States was being overpaid for its use and that the U.S. should never have given it to the Panamanians.
Mulino had previously openly refuted the U.S. State Department’s assertion that his nation had come to an agreement to provide unfettered passage of U.S. warships via the Panama Canal. Early in February, the Panamanian leader claimed to have informed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that he was unable to determine transit costs or exempt anyone from them. He also expressed astonishment at the time that the State Department had released a statement implying otherwise.
In a meeting with Mulino at about the same time, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio emphasized that China was influencing the canal’s operations. The Chinese consortium operating the ports was the main emphasis. China’s involvement on canal operations was denied by Panama.
“Cooperation between our governments passes through clear understandings in terms of issues of mutual interest,” Mulino stated. “It doesn’t have anything to do with ‘reclaiming the canal’ nor with tarnishing our national sovereignty.”
In an agreement worth about $23 billion, including $5 billion in debt, CK Hutchison Holding announced in a filing on the 4th of March that it will sell the BlackRock consortium all of its shares in Hutchison Port Holdings and Hutchison Port Group Holdings. The deal must be authorized by the Panamanian government.
To make it easier for military and commercial ships to move between its shores, the United States constructed the canal in the early 1900s. On December 31, 1999, Washington gave up management of the canal to Panama following a 1977 pact that President Jimmy Carter signed. Carter “foolishly” handed the waterway away, according to Mr. Trump.
According to a statement by CK Hutchison’s co-managing director Frank Sixt, the deal was “the result of a rapid, discrete but competitive process in which numerous bids and expressions of interest were received.”
Sixth remarked, “I would like to stress that the transaction is purely commercial in nature and wholly unrelated to recent political news reports concerning the Panama Ports.”
