United States: Trump threatens to regain control of the Panama Canal

US President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday attacked the “ridiculous” rights of passage imposed on American ships using the Panama Canal and threatened to demand the resumption of control of this navigation route by States. -United.

Donald Trump has suggested that China has growing influence over the canal, a key shipping route for U.S. businesses and interests that ship goods through it between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

“Our navy and commerce are being treated particularly unfairly […] The rights (of passage) that Panama charges are ridiculous,” the Republican who is to succeed Democrat Joe Biden on January 20 declared on his Truth Social network. “This total “scam” of our country will stop immediately,” he promised.

“Safe, efficient and reliable operation”

Control of the Panama Canal, completed by the United States in 1914, was fully returned to the Central American country in 1999, under an agreement signed by Democratic President Jimmy Carter in 1977.

“It was only up to Panama to manage it, not China or anyone else,” the billionaire wrote on Saturday. “We would NEVER allow it to fall into the wrong hands!”

If Panama is unable to guarantee “the safe, efficient and reliable operation” of this sea route, “we will then demand that the Panama Canal be returned to us, in full, and without question,” declared Donald Trump .

5% of global maritime traffic

Panamanian authorities did not immediately react to Donald Trump's publication.

According to estimates, some 5% of global maritime traffic passes through the canal, which allows ships traveling especially between Asia and the east coast of the United States to avoid a long and perilous detour through the southern tip of America South.

In October, the Panama Canal Authority announced that it had recorded a turnover of nearly five billion dollars (4.4 billion Swiss francs) during the past fiscal year.

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