The Panama Canal “is part of the fight” of Panama for its full sovereignty and “an irreversible conquest,” said Panamanian Foreign Minister Javier Martínez-Acha on Tuesday, after the president-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, said that does not rule out resorting to the use of military force to regain control of the interoceanic waterway. “I reiterate what (Panamanian) President José Raúl Mulino has already said: the sovereignty of our canal is not negotiable and is part of our history of struggle and an irreversible conquest,” said Martínez-Acha during a statement to the press. He added that “when the president-elect (Trump) takes office,” on January 20, “the relationship between the United States and Panama will be managed through the formal, usual and corresponding channels.”
In a press conference this Tuesday, Trump was asked if he ruled out the use of “military or economic coercion” to achieve his objective of regaining control of the Panama Canal and the island of Greenland (Denmark), to which he responded “no.”I can’t assure you that I will rule out either of those two options.
On December 20, Panama commemorated the 35th anniversary of the US invasion of the country to capture dictator Manuel Antonio Noriega on drug trafficking charges, which left between 500 and 4,000 dead. The Central American country abolished its Army after that foreign incursion.
This Tuesday, Trump again accused the Central American country of imposing excessive passage fees on American ships and insisted that China controls the canal, statements that the Panamanian government has already rejected. “Tolls are not made at the whim of the presidents and the administrator” of the canal, they are set in a “public and open process” in which clients and other actors participate, declared Mulino on December 26 when answering “no” when was asked if toll costs would be reduced over Trump’s complaints. And Martínez-Acha repeated this Tuesday what President Mulino has already said before: “the only hands that control the canal are Panamanian and that will continue to be the case,” denying once again Trump’s claim that China controls the route that connects the Atlantic and Pacific.
The Panama Canal was built by the United States, which inaugurated it in 1914 and administered it until its total transfer to the Panamanian State on December 31, 1999.as established in the Torrijos-Carter Treaties, signed on September 7, 1977 in Washington by the Panamanian leader, Omar Torrijos (1929-1981), and the US president, Jimmy Carter (1924-2024). There are also treaties relating to permanent neutrality and the operation of the road signed by the two countries in 1977 that are “mandatory” compliance, and put an end to the Hay-Bunau Varilla treaty of 1903 that gave the United States the rights in perpetuity to build and use the canal initiated by the French, as the former Panamanian president (1978-1982) and former negotiator of the Torrijos-Carter Treaties of 1977, Aristides Royo.
“Our channel has the mission of serving humanity and its commerce, that is one of the great values that Panamanians offer to the world, giving a guarantee to the international community of not taking part or being an active party in any conflict,” said this Tuesday the chancellor of Panama.
The United States is the main user of the Panama Canal, through which around 3% of the trade worldfollowed far by China. The North American power is also the main commercial and political partner of the Central American country. “We are a country open to dialogue today and always, to investments and good relations, but with the clear slogan that the Homeland comes first,” said the Foreign Minister of Panama at the conclusion of his statement.
