PANAMA CITY (AP) — Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino said on Wednesday that Donald Trump is “lying again” and that the United States is not in the process of recovering the interoceanic canal as suggested by the U.S. president in his speech to Congress.
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In a post on his X account, formerly Twitter, the Panamanian leader denied that he had discussed that topic with Secretary of State Marco Rubio during his visit to Panama in early February or with any other US official. Trump, in his speech, pointed out that his top diplomat was in charge of that mission.
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On Tuesday night, in a controversial and partisan speech before a joint session of Congress, he said, "my administration will recover the Panama Canal and we have already started to do so."
What was Mulino’s response to Trump?
“I reject on behalf of Panama and all Panamanians this new affront to the truth and our dignity as a nation,” wrote Mulino, a pro-United States leader who began his five-year term on July 1st and who has been dealing with pressure from Trump long before the Republican leader assumed his second presidency on January 20th.
Since then, Trump has been threatening to regain control of the commercial waterway, transferred to Panama on December 31, 1999 as a result of a treaty between both nations, arguing that it is allegedly controlled by China and charges “exorbitant” fees to US military vessels and users.
The new threat from Trump came on the same day it was reported that a powerful US investment fund, BlackRock Inc, acquired through a preliminary agreement the ports operating on both sides of the Panama Canal from the consortium CK Hutchison Holding, based in Hong Kong, which were under scrutiny by the new Trump administration.
The American president even mentioned that purchase operation during his speech.
For Mulino, “cooperation between our governments involves clear understandings on issues of mutual interest. It has nothing to do with ‘recovering the canal’ or tarnishing our national sovereignty.” And he reiterated: “The canal is Panamanian and will continue to be Panamanian.”