The Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, warned Panama this Sunday that the US will take measures if it does not make “immediate changes” in the Panama Canal, claiming that it has violated the transfer treaty. When meeting with the president José Raúl Mulino … Rubio “made it clear that this status quo is unacceptable and that, in the absence of immediate changes, he would require the US to take the necessary measures to protect his rights under the treaty,” said state department spokesman Tammy Bruce.
For his part, Mulino transferred the head of the US diplomacy “Panama’s sovereignty is not in question”. This was revealed by the president to the press after the meeting with Rubio. “There is no doubt that the channel is operated by our country and thus will continue to be,” he said in allusion to the statements of President Trump in which he has assured that it is operated by China. And he offered his cooperation to dissipate doubts, proposing Rubio, that technical teams clarify doubts about the alleged Chinese presence in the Panama Canal. “We have opened the possibility that our technical teams” clarify “what has to be clarified.”
On his tour of Central America, Rubio stopped this weekend in Panama and had an encounter with the president of the country to discuss a series of allegations, speeches and threats that both countries have launched in recent weeks and that have raised the tension diplomat.
A tension that has moved to the streets of the capital On the occasion of the visit of the head of American diplomacy, which was received between great protests and with the avenues of Panama City full of national flags as a symbol of sovereignty, thus showing its rejection of the threats of President Trump to recover US control of that infrastructure.
Street protests
The streets of the capital were filled with protesters burning Blonde and Trump photographs with the Nazi symbol and US flags, while they chanted slogans such as ‘The channel is ours’, ‘Outside Trump and the Yankee Empire’, and ‘in defense of Panamanian sovereignty’.
Protesters in the streets of the Panamanian capital
AFP
Rubio began his visit to Panama attending the church of La Merced, in the old town, for the celebration of the Catholic rite of the Holy Mass and then went to the Palacio de Las Garzas.
Among the other issues discussed between both delegations were irregular migration through the jungle of the Darién plug, repatriations and the memorandum of understanding signed by the United States and Panama. After the meeting, the head of American diplomacy had on his agenda a visit to the Miraflores locks, on the channel, and a meeting with the authorities of that infrastructure.
The visit of the US Secretary of State to Panama was labeled by analysts and experts in hemispheric relationships such as Un “failure” has not served to reduce the geopolitical crisis caused by Trump’s statements.
The control of the channel was transferred from the United States to Panama on December 31, 1999, by virtue of the Torrijos-Carter Treaties of 1977. It joins the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and in that way it transits 3% of world trade.
Rubio’s trip through Central America marks a historical milestone, since it is the First time in 100 years that a US Secretary of State chooses this region for its first international trip. Panama has been just the first stop of the tour. It is planned to continue in Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic, where it will focus its agenda on the discussion of immigration policies to contain the avalanches of undocumented on the southern border of the USA, as well as strategies to curb the drug trafficking
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