The United States said on Wednesday that its government ships would be allowed to go through the Panama Canal after heavy pressure from President Donald Trump.
The State Department said in a post on the social media platform X, “The US government ships can now cross the Panama Canal without any fee, which can save the US government to save millions of dollars in a year.”
This was the first public announcement of promises mentioned by US State Secretary Marco Rubio, who said that Panama offered concessions during his conversation on Sunday.
Rubio said that he had told Panama that it was unfair to be in a position to protect important waterways for the United States and also to be charged for its use.
Since winning the US election, Trump has refused to use force to seize the canal, through which 40 percent of the US container traffic passes. Trump and Rubio have complained about Chinese investment – including ports on both sides of the canal – and warned that Beijing may close the United States waterway in a crisis.
Panama has repeatedly denied Trump’s allegations that China has been given a role in operating the canal.
But it has also gone to solve the worries. President Jose Raul Mulino, after his conversation with Rubio, said that the Panama Belt and Road initiative will not renew the membership in the construction program of Beijing’s signature infrastructure.
Rubio told reporters on Monday that his conversation with Mulino was “respectable” and the journey “was probably good things that we have concerns.”
However, Trump said he was still “not happy,” however admitted that Panama “had agreed to some things.”
The United States and Panama are about to hold a new conversation on Friday to discuss the canal.
Trump said in his inaugural address that the United States would “take back” the canal-more than a century before Washington was built with Afro-Caribbean labor and handed back to Panama in late 1999.
(Except for the headline, the story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is published by a syndicated feed.)
