US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will visit Panama in his first foreign trip since taking office, a source told Reuters today, amid threats by President Donald Trump to “take back” the Panama Canal from the US. , a threat that has angered the Central American country.
Rubio is expected to depart Jan. 31 and travel through the first week of February, making additional stops in Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica and El Salvador, according to the source familiar with the plans.
The travel schedule is still being worked out, and the order in which the new head of US diplomacy will visit those countries may change, the source added.
When contacted for comment, the State Department said it had no travel plans to announce at this time.
Trump’s threats
In his inauguration speech on Monday, Trump repeated his threat that Washington would “take back” control of the Panama Canal, a strategic seaway that connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
The Canal, built by the US, was opened in 1914 and control of it was handed over to Panama in 1999, under an agreement signed with the country by former US President Jimmy Carter.
The Republican billionaire once returned to the White House repeated the claim that his country is being “unfairly” treated by Panama and that this “gift” should never have been “given” to the country. “The promises made to us by Panama are not being kept,” he said, insisting that the transit costs of American ships are inflated, despite the categorical denials of the competent authority. And “above all, China exploits the Panama Canal, and we didn’t give it to China, we gave it to Panama. And we will get her back again,” he said, without clarifying how.
“The Canal is and will continue to be Panama’s”
Reacting immediately after this speech, the president of Panama, Jose Raul Molino, declared that the Canal “is and will continue to be Panama’s”.
Yesterday, in fact, Molino from Davos emphasized that the Panama Canal was not a “gift” from the USA. “The Panama Canal belongs to Panama and will continue to belong to Panama. The Panama Canal was not a concession or a gift of the United States,” he reiterated at a round table organized on the occasion of the World Economic Forum session in Switzerland.
On Tuesday, the Panamanian government expressed to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres its concern over the new US president’s repeated public intention to place the Canal under US control.
