Of the things that are more innovative in the second presidency of Donald Trump The one that most attracts attention is its renewed interest in Latin America, both in the Panama Canal and for the deportations of people to different countries of the … region. This gives a new meaning to the president’s portrait William McKinley that has hung again in the oval office. Everything else, tariffs, immigration speech, their support for Israel, threats to Europe, we had already seen it in their first term. So the original is for the United States to occupy what happens in its ‘backyard’.
The case of the Panama Canal is significant. In 1977, when the Carter-Torrijos treaties were signed, China was a poor agrarian economy. Even in 1999, when the effective transfer of the installation of Panamanian hands was verified, Beijing was far from being a power that competed for world leadership. It had not even been admitted in the World Trade Organization (WTO) something that would happen in 2001. Therefore, the requirement that the road remained neutral was fundamentally referring to not falling into the hands of any declared enemy of the United States in That moment. From the present it can be understood that Washington has interpreted as a deterioration of the neutrality of the channel the fact that two of the five Panamanian ports located in the area of the canal are being managed by a Chinese company, but that company (originally located In the British enclave of Hong Kong) he took the management of these facilities in 1997.
It was so little the interest Trump had in the region in his first term (2016-2020), that many countries remained without ambassador for long periods of time. This was due to the fact that the ratification of ambassadors in the Senate has become a long and cumbersome process. Of the 115 ambassadors proposed by George Bush, 103 were confirmed in the course of their first year of government, which represents a 90%rate. With Obama They were 85%, but with Trump they fell to 75%and with 63%Biden. Rightly the Panamanians explained to the new US Secretary of State Marco Rubio that his country “left many empty chairs during these years”, referring to the fact that they could be more attentive to the deployment of Chinese investors in the continent.
USA Now he wants to dispute the positions that China has affirmed in Latin America. He intends to do so in a substantially different scenario from the one that existed 20 years ago. Today, China It is the main commercial partner of most Pacific’s riverside countries. If it is not the first receiver of its exports, it is the second, which makes it an indispensable partner. And the one who has been losing positions is the United States. Trump wants now, at a time of tariff, recover the lost time. If mistakes are made, the fight can become fierce.
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