Panama, familiar with US intervention, bristles at Trump’s comments on canal

President Donald Trump’s insistence Monday that he wants the Panama Canal back under U.S. control fed nationalist sentiment and worry in Panama, home to the critical trade route and a country familiar with U.S. military intervention.

“American ships are being severely overcharged and not treated fairly in any way, shape or form, and that includes the United States Navy. And above all, China is operating the Panama Canal,” Trump said Monday.

In the capital, some Panamanians saw Trump’s remarks as a way of applying pressure on Panama for something else he wants: better control of migration through the Darien Gap. Others recalled the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama with concern.

Panama President José Raúl Mulino responded forcefully, as he did after Trump’s initial statement last month that the U.S. should consider repossessing the canal, saying the canal belongs to his country of 4 million and will remain Panama’s territory.

Panama’s U.N. Mission sent Mulino’s statement to the U.N. Security Council. The statement rejected “in its entirety” Trump’s comments on the canal and said: “There is no presence of any nation in the world that interferes with our administration.”

Luis Barrera, a 52-year-old cab driver, said Panama had fought hard to get the canal back and has expanded it since taking control.

“I really feel uncomfortable because it’s like when you’re big and you take a candy from a little kid,” Barrera said.

At a rally in Phoenix in December, Trump said he might try to get the canal back after it was “foolishly” ceded to Panama. He complained that shippers were overcharged and that China had taken control of the key shortcut between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

Earlier this month, Trump wouldn’t rule out using military force to take it back
The United States built the canal in the early 1900s as it looked for ways to facilitate the transit of commercial and military vessels between its coasts. Washington relinquished control of the waterway to Panama on Dec. 31, 1999, under a treaty signed in 1977 by President Jimmy Carter.
Source: AP