AFP, PANAMA CITY
Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino on Thursday ruled out negotiations with US president-elect Donald Trump over control of the Panama Canal, denying that China was interfering in its operation.
Mulino also rejected the possibility of reducing tolls for US vessels in response to Trump’s threat to demand control of the vital waterway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans be returned to Washington.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Mulino told a news conference. “The canal is Panamanian and belongs to Panamanians. There’s no possibility of opening any kind of conversation around this reality, which has cost the country blood, sweat and tears.”
Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino speaks at a news conference at the presidential palace in Panama City on Thursday.
Photo: AFP
The canal, inaugurated in 1914, was built by the US, but handed to Panama on Dec. 31, 1999, under treaties signed some two decades earlier by then-US president Jimmy Carter and Panamanian nationalist leader Omar Torrijos.
Trump on Saturday criticized what he called “ridiculous” fees for US ships passing through the canal and hinted at China’s growing influence.
“It was solely for Panama to manage, not China, or anyone else,” Trump said in a post on social media. “We would and will NEVER let it fall into the wrong hands!”
If Panama could not ensure “the secure, efficient and reliable operation” of the channel, “then we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to us, in full, and without question,” Trump said.
An estimated 5 percent of global maritime traffic passes through the Panama Canal, which allows ships traveling between Asia and the US east coast to avoid the long, hazardous route around the southern tip of South America.
The US is its main user, accounting for 74 percent of cargo, followed by China with 21 percent.
Mulino said the canal’s usage fees were “not set at the whim of the president or the administrator” of the waterway, but under a long-established “public and open process.”
“There is absolutely no Chinese interference or participation in anything to do with the Panama Canal,” Mulino said.
Trump on Wednesday on social media alleged, without evidence, that Chinese soldiers were “lovingly, but illegally, operating the Panama Canal.”
Mulino denied that allegation, too.
“There are no Chinese soldiers in the canal, for the love of God,” he said.
Panama established diplomatic relations with China in 2017, after breaking off ties with Taiwan — a decision criticized by the then-Trump administration.
