Panama City – A black, large Hong Kong-registered ship crosses the stirring waters of the Panama Canal, guiding at the stern and stern of the tugboat, the sweaty Panaman lifts the yellow ropes and hangs them on the higher level on the ship.
The ship, called Zim Mount Blanc, carries about 17,000 rusted containers, blue, red and white, stacked seven and eight highs. It barely bypassed the sides of the passage and seemed close enough to scratch the edges.
Dozens of Chinese, American, European and other ships cross the 50-mile canal every day, which connects the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean and expanded a decade ago to accommodate newer, larger vessels.
This has long been an important pathway in international transportation and a key to the Panama economy.
Now, President Trump wants to catch it.
Trump complained about the impact he believes the danger China has on water access, sending his Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a long-time Latin America expert to strengthen information about Rubio’s new cabinet members this month.
“We didn’t hand the canal over to the Chinese. We gave it over to Panama.
The Panama reception was very angry. Visit Panama City through Rubio, and then the demonstrators waved placards and shouted, “The canal is ours!”
“Trump and Rubio managed to revive Panamanian nationalism,” said Panamanian political analyst Edwin Cabrera.
A Chinese cargo ship crossed the Panama Canal on January 31, 2025.
(Trecy Wilkinson/Los Angeles Times)
Cabrera and other analysts say Panamanians rarely unite, but the threat to canal ownership shifts to the core of national identity and eliminates ideological differences.
There is no doubt that China has entered major economic and diplomatic abuses in Latin America. But in his inaugural address, Trump claimed that the canal and its ports were “controlled” or “operated” by China, including “Chinese soldiers.”
Five companies operate ports: two Chinese, one Taiwan, one Singapore and one our consortium oversees transportation, including companies from many other countries.
Trump was particularly distressed, and President Carter reached an agreement with Panama in 1977 to abandon control of the canal in 1999.
According to canal officials, the Canal Complex conducted $5.25 billion in 2015 to accommodate wider locks and mechanically retractable doors that allow passage through substantially larger vessels, with a capacity of about 2.5 times the number of containers previously shipped by ships.
Trump said that the U.S. military could be used to “recapture” the canal, awakening dark memories of when the American invasion of Panama in 1989. At the time, the United States still controlled the canal area, but dictator General Manuel Noriega, former CIA agent and prosecuted drug traffickers, increasingly built themselves on the US cross-person list, including the largest number of people in the United States.
Every day, dozens of Chinese, American, European, and other ships cross the Panama Canal.
(Trecy Wilkinson/Los Angeles Times)
Hundreds of most Panamanians were killed – the exact numbers could never be clear – the Casco Viejo of the capital was largely destroyed. Norriga was arrested.
Political scientist Miguel Antonio Bernal said Trump’s revival of certain bell languages is especially the nerves of Panama. “The trauma of invasion remains,” he said. “It’s a word that has not been cured.”
Panama, along with Haiti and Grenada, one of only three countries in the Western Hemisphere that were invaded by the United States in the last century.
“The canal is ours, always,” Bernal added.
To this day, the Panamanians have a national holiday every year, remembering the killings of 21 Panamanians by the U.S. military and police in 1964, who wanted to raise the country’s flag in the canal area controlled by the United States at the time.
Many Panamanians questioned the canal’s motivations about Trump’s motivation, which suggests that they may be related to business pursuits or imperialist expansionism, which also made Trump express interest in Greenland, Canada and even the Gaza Strip.
It was suggested that Trump never forgives Panama for being the first place to rebrand Trump development, in this case for Marriott.
Trump could have actually had a natural ally in Panama President José Raúl Mulino, a conservative, unconscious pro-US politician. Mulino was early on working to reduce the migration of the Darien divide in Panama and has been helping to promote deportation of immigrants from the United States to parts of the Central and South America.
But the canal is another matter.
Mulino is “the kind of person who should get along well with Donald Trump if Donald Trump didn’t kick the sand in his face and threaten the survival asset that Panama has: the canal.”
After Rubio met with Mulino last week, the State Department announced that Panama has agreed to waive the U.S. Navy fees, and that every country in the world pays for crossing the canal.
Mourino shot quickly, saying that such a deal was not reached and that the Trump administration was engaged in “lies and falsehood.” He said he contacted U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth about the matter. The phone call with Trump was also arranged in a hurry.
