PANAMA CITY (AFP) – United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio has kicked off his first official foreign trip with a stop in Panama, a longtime U.S. ally shaken by President Donald Trump’s extraordinary threat to seize the Panama Canal.
Kicking off his five-nation tour of the region, Rubio was expected to tour Panama’s strategic waterway and meet President Jose Raul Mulino on Sunday.
“It’s no accident that my first trip abroad as secretary of state will keep me in the hemisphere,” he wrote in a Wall Street Journal column on Friday.
The canal is a crucial link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and coasts, with 40 percent of U.S. container traffic going through it.
Trump has refused to rule out military force to seize the Panama Canal, which the U.S. handed over at the end of 1999, saying China has exerted too much control through its investment in surrounding ports.
In his inaugural address last month, Trump said the U.S. will be “taking it back”, and refused to back down on Friday. “They’ve already offered to do many things,” Trump said of Panama, “but we think it’s appropriate that we take it back.”
He alleged that Panama was taking down Chinese-language signs to cover up how “they have totally violated the agreement” on the canal. “Marco Rubio is going over to talk to the gentleman that’s in charge,” Trump told reporters.
Panama’s President Mulino has ruled out negotiating with the U.S. over ownership of the canal. He said he hoped Rubio’s visit would instead focus on shared interests like migration and combating drug trafficking.
“It’s impossible, I can’t negotiate,” Mulino said. “The canal belongs to Panama.”
Yet Rubio said he would make Trump’s intent clear. In an interview on Thursday with SiriusXM host Megyn Kelly, he said Trump’s desire is driven by legitimate national security interests stemming from growing concerns about Chinese activity and influence in Latin America.
“We are going to address that topic,” said Rubio. “The president’s been pretty clear he wants to administer the canal again. Obviously, the Panamanians are not big fans of that idea. That message has been brought very clear.”
Despite Mulino’s rejection of any negotiation, some believe Panama may be open to a compromise under which canal operations on both sides are taken away from the Hong Kong-based Hutchison Ports company.
Japan on Sunday expressed its “serious” concern over the potential impact of U.S. tariffs on China, Canada and Mexico.
Japanese Finance Minister Katsunobu Kato, on a TV program, said he is “very concerned about the possible impact on the global economy,” Tokyo-based Kyodo News reported.
Kato stressed the need to “thoroughly assess” foreign exchange movements and the outlook of monetary policy in the US, a key trade partner of Japan.