Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino on Thursday refused to negotiate with US President-elect Donald Trump over control of the Panama Canal and denied that China was interfering in its operation.
Mulino also dismissed the possibility of reducing tolls for U.S. vessels in response to Trump’s threat to seek to return control of the vital waterway linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans to Washington.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Mulino said at a news conference.
He said, “The canal belongs to Panama and belongs to the Panamanian people. There is no possibility of any dialogue starting around this reality that has cost the country blood, sweat and tears.”
The canal, inaugurated in 1914, was built by the United States, but it was handed over to Panama on December 31, 1999, under treaties signed nearly two decades earlier by then-US President Jimmy Carter and Panamanian nationalist leader Omar Torrijos .
Trump on Saturday described the tariffs on US ships passing through the canal as “ridiculous” and hinted at China’s growing influence.
“This was solely for Panama to manage, not China or anyone else,” Trump said in a post on his Truth social platform. “We will never let it fall into the wrong hands!”
If Panama could not ensure the “safe, efficient and reliable operation” of the Canal, “then we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to us completely and without questions,” he said.
– ‘No Chinese interference’ –
An estimated five percent of global maritime traffic passes through the Panama Canal, which allows ships traveling between Asia and the East Coast of the Americas to avoid the long, dangerous passage around the southern tip of South America.
The United States is its main user, accounting for 74 percent of cargo, followed by China with 21 percent.
Mulino said the canal’s use fees were set “not at the whim of the President or the Administrator” of the transoceanic waterway but under a long-established “public and open process.”
“China has no interference or involvement in anything related to the Panama Canal,” Mulino said.
On Wednesday, Trump alleged on Truth Social, without evidence, that Chinese troops were “lovingly, but illegally, manning the Panama Canal.”
Mulino denied that allegation as well.
“For the love of God there are no Chinese soldiers in the canal,” he said.
Panama established diplomatic ties with China in 2017 after severing ties with Taiwan – a decision criticized by Trump’s first administration.
On Tuesday, dozens of protesters gathered outside the US Embassy in Panama City chanting “Trump, the animals, leave the canal alone” and burning a photo of the incoming US president.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
