Embroeded with the policy of President Donald Trump, obsessed with decreasing the presence of China, recovering the Panama Canal and stopping migration to the United States, Secretary of State Frame with part of his against his government. Rubio will find the local president, José Raúl Mulino, worried and with the mood of delivering anything except what most Panamanians consider a nonsense that in recent days US officials have demanded with the determination of a beast: the Panama channel.
“President Trump is quite clear that he wants to manage the channel again,” Rubio warned two days before starting his abroad as head of the United States diplomacy, with scales in Panama, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic . Thus, he joined the string of Republican representatives who in an intense week went out to crush with the same – from him, Pete Hegseth, to Republican senators, who in Congress on Tuesday, January 28 -: The alleged Chinese influence is a “ direct threat to American security. ”
The last to say was the special envoy of the United States for Latin America, Mauricio Claver-Carone. In a prior to the trip of Rubio, on Friday, January 31, he repeated that they intend the “reconstruction of the golden age” of the beginning of the last century, when they built the channel. After complaining about the marine, maintenance and concession to a company based in Hong Kong of the ports at both ends of the interoceanic path, Claver-Carone released: “Hopefully the Government of Panama sees it as an opportunity for Good faith to promote and improve the interests of both countries. ” The government does not see it that way, although in its mood there is no.
Every time you can, Mulino repeats that the channel is not negotiable. “It’s from Panama and will remain from Panama,” he said at the inauguration, organized by Caf-Banco de Development of Latin America and the Caribbean, the Prisa Group and World In Progress (WIP). The next day, in his weekly meeting with journalists, he gave clues of the dismiss military from another country on the channel ”.
The president read notes to try to deactivate the bulos on the channel crushed in recent weeks by Trump and his men, already denied, to close with a reference to Tuesday’s audience in the US Senate: “They spoke, invented and lied. What can I tell you? Zero stress with that. ” However, although it is not the first time that the road, the nerves are left over.
Because of its strategic location, the only step between the Atlantic and the Pacific has been the center of fights in the 19th and 20th centuries, always with the United States in a corner of the quadrilateral. “The Panamanian transit zone was in conflict between world powers in the nineteenth century,” says historian Marixa Lasso, author of ‘Lost stories of the Panama Canal’ (in the original Harvard University Version University). First, the United States struggled with England when he built the railroad and then with France when he obtained the one to try to open – without success – the ditch at the end of 1800. Since 1903, the year he finally started the final work, and until the Last day of 1999, when it returns it in compliance with the Torrijos-Carter Treaty, the United States always tried to be imposed in Panama, according to the former chancellor and former ambassador in that country, Ricardo Alberto Arias. The novelty now is that in front there is someone unpredictable, beyond all known political code, as Trump.
Perhaps that is the reason why the government is perceived cowardly and not only did not turn to the way of international law to defend against its interference, as the tradition advises and, but it deactivated the attempt of the only diplomat that reacted, Eloy Alfaro . Ambassador to the United Nations (UN), Alfaro presented a formal letter to the Security Council and the general secretary of the agency, António Guterres, the same day Trump assumed, rejecting his comments on the recovery of the channel during inauguration. A few days later, Mulino brought him back to Panama for advisors and Carlos Ruiz-Hernández to Washington, supposedly to apologize-something that his government denies and about what Ruiz-Hernández himself does not answer.
While Mulino’s agenda is generally aligned with Trump’s, just now his actions is pointed out as “delivery” by and the isthmus. “They have not called anyone relevant to know the Chinese issue or on international law,” says one, who requested that his name was not cited. “If they are so calm, if they do not go by international way, my bet is that they are going to tell him ‘I give you one of the two ports, and ready,” he risked another that also asked for anonymity in reference, one of the managed ports by the company based in Hong Kong, now by the United States although it has never been included in its black lists and operates other ports of allied countries such as the United Kingdom.
The big question: What is willing to deliver Mulino?
Rubio, whose agenda in Panama is still reserved, tens of international journalists were advanced. They came to hit the door of the presidential palace with the same doubt: what is he willing to deliver Mulino for Rubio to take off from Panama with a conquest and get rid of Trump?
Reluctant to bleach the strategy before “knowing exactly” what it seeks – despite the fact that their demands were explicit -, in public the government is limited to saying that “you have to wait” to listen and analyze. Based, they told El País that they would point to two other “essential interests” for Trump management, even giving sovereignty whenever the channel is left on the outside: migration and fight against organized crime. In both, without the collaboration of Panama, there is no possibility for the United States to achieve its objectives.
But the gestures of recent weeks indicate that they would be willing to go even further. Before Trump assumed, the government hired lobists close to him to display tensions with Washington. Immediately after the Assumption, an audit announced to Panama Ports Company, a company of the company based in Hong Kong that operates terminals on the Atlantic and Pacific Sides of the Canal. The intention, according to him, is “to guarantee the efficient and transparent use of public resources.” Between old complaints and new opportunities, local media that the rate for the container movement has been outdated for more than ten years, although it had to reverse since 2013, a delay that reaches the other ports of the country, operated by competitors from other countries.
In case more gestures were necessary, in the last week Mulino President joked at a meeting with investors of the company “100% North American” that will build a train: “I hope they don’t get out with a Chinese out there.” Two of his ministers also lowered the weight of relations with China: “Chinese presence does not move the needle of the Panamanian economy,” said the economy, Felipe Chapman, in the International Economic Forum Latin America and the Caribbean. Secondized by Foreign Minister Javier Martínez-Facha, he added that the most important relations for Panama are those of the United States and Colombia.
A day later, Mulino again responsible for former president Juan Carlos Varela – who began relations with China in 2017 – for the current crisis with the power of the North for “having made a murky negotiation” product “of the Machiavellian mentality of a patient.” In a striking harmony, Claver-Carone also pointed against Varela in his.
“Panama has to defend himself”
Social networks burned in a simultaneous scenario of disputes. “Panama has to defend himself and has to attack this issue multilaterally,” lawyer Rodrigo Noriega. “The ACP Advisory Board [Autoridad del Canal] It is chaired by a 4 -star retired admiral of the United States Navy, “an opponent of Mulino,” but China controls the channel according to Trump, Rubio and Company. ” Indigenous Ngöbe chose WhatsApp to warn that their people are “ready to defend Panama.”
Among the diatribes and nationalist claims, reproaches were sneaked into the “” already an extended collective in the region: Trump fans who, tune in with Rubio and Claver-Carone, talk about the hemispheric crisis as an “opportunity for business.” They are the technoboys of the period, admirers of Milei and Bukele, whose main exponents in the country are the mayor of the capital, and the former deputy. Popular creativity baptized them as “Magameños.”
While the networks are entangled, the Mulino Government Planta Banderas around the presidential palace and orders to suppress students with. The street feels far away. “The people are fighting for something that will never benefit it, when they even face their face even if it benefits them,” said José, 29, behind the wheel of a taxi leased in the capital.
The reproach, long -standing, flies in markets, stalls of improvised fruits and the interior of the country, regardless of the economic benefits of the traffic zone. “Here they do the same if the gringos stay with everything,” said Yiyi, 22, from Portobelo, a town on the Caribbean near the channel but apart from any progress. “We fight with the mine, we fight now and the same always do what they want,” Marcial, a 48 -year -old teacher, in a forgotten mountain town 400 kilometers from the capital. They are part of the infinite tide that starred in the protests of 2022 – for the rise in prices and for the lack of investment in education -, of 2023 – continues the enclave that represents the first quantum minerals – and now march, again, for defend sovereignty.
Since the return of the channel, Panama grew without stopping, but did not distribute wealth. The responsibility of this “very unfair” distribution is in the selfishness of its elites: 84% for “a few powerful groups for their own benefit.” The economic activity, the benefits that are obtained from it and the political agenda remained concentrated in the Canalra Strip and 67.6% of the Panamanians argue that these benefits. As the taxi driver José said, the channel for which they fight “only benefits them”, the elites
Secretary Marco Rubio lands this Saturday in a pertrechado Panama after those claims. The city planted with flags will be found, as a first notice that the It doesn’t strain here. Then, he will resonate the same song heard much earlier by a dozen governments of his country: “This country belongs to everyone,” “Panama is from the Panamanians.”
