The US secretary of state follows up on President Donald Trump’s extraordinary threat to seize the Panama Canal.
United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio has kicked off his first official foreign trip with a stop in Panama, a longtime US ally shaken by President Donald Trump’s extraordinary threat to seize the Panama Canal.
Kicking off his five-nation tour of the region, Rubio is expected to tour Panama’s strategic waterway and meet President Jose Raul Mulino on Sunday.
“It’s no accident that my first trip abroad as secretary of state will keep me in the hemisphere,” he wrote in a Wall Street Journal column on Friday.
The canal is a crucial link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and coasts, with 40 percent of US container traffic going through it.
Trump has refused to rule out military force to seize the Panama Canal, which the US handed over at the end of 1999, saying China has exerted too much control through its investment in surrounding ports.
In his inaugural address last month, Trump said the US will be “taking it back”, and refused to back down on Friday. “They’ve already offered to do many things,” Trump said of Panama, “but we think it’s appropriate that we take it back.”
He alleged that Panama was taking down Chinese-language signs to cover up how “they have totally violated the agreement” on the canal. “Marco Rubio is going over to talk to the gentleman that’s in charge,” Trump told reporters.
Rubio’s mission also comes on the heels of Trump-imposed tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, and the freezing of nearly all US foreign aid – moves that signal a far more aggressive foreign policy.
‘Canal belongs to Panama’
Panama’s President Mulino has ruled out negotiating with the US over ownership of the canal. He said he hoped Rubio’s visit would instead focus on shared interests like migration and combating drug trafficking.
“It’s impossible, I can’t negotiate,” Mulino said on Thursday. “The canal belongs to Panama.”
Yet Rubio said he would make Trump’s intent clear. In an interview on Thursday with SiriusXM host Megyn Kelly, he said Trump’s desire is driven by legitimate national security interests stemming from growing concerns about Chinese activity and influence in Latin America.
“We are going to address that topic,” said Rubio. “The president’s been pretty clear he wants to administer the canal again. Obviously, the Panamanians are not big fans of that idea. That message has been brought very clear.”
Despite Mulino’s rejection of any negotiation, some believe Panama may be open to a compromise under which canal operations on both sides are taken away from the Hong Kong-based Hutchison Ports company.
What is unclear is whether Trump would accept the transfer of the concession to an American or European firm as meeting his demands, which appear to cover more than just operations.
“In some ways, Trump is pushing on an open door,” said Ryan Berg, director of the Americas programme at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, DC-based think tank. “But it will depend on how his red lines are defined.”
“There’s been a lot of heavy rhetoric and it will be up [to] Rubio to clarify it,” he said.