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Panama

Panama’s Shift Toward Militarization Raises Sovereignty Concerns

March 24, 2025 Janvieve Williams Comrie, Black Agenda Report. , , , ,
Panama City, Panama — Recent developments in Panama's security policies indicate a departure from its longstanding commitment to demilitarization, raising concerns about national sovereignty and renewed U.S. military influence in the region.​ Since the disbandment of its military in 1990, following the U.S. invasion to depose General Manuel Noriega, Panama has maintained a policy of demilitarization. This stance is enshrined in Article 310 of the Panamanian Constitution, which explicitly states:​ "La República de Panamá no tendrá ejército" ("The Republic of Panama shall not have an army").​

Trump Orders US Military To Plan Invasion Of Panama To Seize Canal

March 14, 2025 Brett Wilkins, Common Dreams. , , , ,
President Donald Trump has directed the Pentagon to prepare plans for carrying out his threat to "take back" the Panama Canal, including by military force if needed, two U.S. officials familiar with the situation told NBC News Thursday. According to the outlet, the officials said that U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) is drawing up potential plans that run the gamut from working more closely with Panama's military to a less likely scenario in which U.S. troops invade the country and take the canal by force. They also said that SOUTHCOM commander Adm. Alvin Holsey has presented draft strategies to be reviewed by U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who is scheduled to visit Panama next month.

Panama’s Outrage Over Deportations: Reckoning With A Reality Long Ignored

March 13, 2025 Janvieve Williams Comrie, Black Agenda Report. , , , , ,
Panama—and by extension, much of Latin America—is in an uproar. The news of deported migrants, stranded and detained in Panama, has stirred outrage and condemnation. Yet, this is not a new story. It is merely a chapter in a book that has been written, rewritten, and ignored for decades in the United States, even as families, migrants, and human rights advocates warned that such policies would not stay contained within U.S. borders forever. The real question now is: Why is migration only becoming a pressing issue for Latin American nations when they are the ones forced to deal with the aftermath?

Trump Helps BlackRock Buy Panama Canal Ports To Weaken China

March 6, 2025 Ben Norton, Geopolitical Economy. , , , , , , , , , , ,
The Donald Trump administration has made it clear that the top two priorities of the US government are to weaken China and to strengthen Wall Street. The small Central American nation of Panama has found itself at the center of Trump’s strategy. In his inauguration speech on January 20, the US president falsely claimed that “China is operating the [Panama] canal”, and he insisted “we’re taking it back”. In a press conference two weeks before, Trump implied that he was willing to use military force to take over the canal if Panama refused to give the United States effective control.

Trump Wants US To ‘Partner’ With Russia To Weaken China

February 24, 2025 Ben Norton, Geopolitical Economy. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
The Donald Trump administration is holding talks between the United States and Russia, and he says he wants to end the war in Ukraine. Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio has even proposed that the US could “partner with the Russians, geopolitically”. What is happening here? The simple answer is that this is all about China. Trump is trying to divide Russia from China, in an attempt to isolate Beijing. The United States sees China as the number one threat to its global dominance. This has been stated clearly by top officials in both the Trump administration and the previous Joe Biden administration.

What Is A ‘Multipolar’ World?

February 17, 2025 Ben Norton, Geopolitical Economy. , , , , , , , , , ,
It is now widely acknowledged that the world is multipolar. This is so uncontroversial that the Munich Security Conference chose the title “Multipolarization” for its 2025 annual report. However, there is not a common definition of “multipolarity”. The Munich Security Report noted that, while “the world’s ‘multipolarization’ is a fact”, the “international system shows elements of unipolarity, bipolarity, multipolarity, and nonpolarity”, in which “multiple order models co-exist, compete, or clash”. Governments have radically different understandings of the meaning of multipolarity.

Let Us Find Our Lost Diamonds

February 7, 2025 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. , , ,
Donald Trump returned to the White House with a loud thump. His staff threw executive order upon executive order on his desk, which he signed with a flourish and then got on the phone to bark orders at the Danes and the Panamanians and the Colombians, demanding this, that, and the other thing, that thing, this thing, the things that he feels that the United States deserves. In Trump’s history, the US once had a Golden Age. He is now the symbol of its anxiety. His slogan, ‘Make America Great Again’, does not disguise the worry about its collapse: Make it great again, he says, because it no longer is great, and it should be great, and I will make it great.

Panama Tries Compromise; US Says It’s Not Enough

February 4, 2025 John Perry, Consortium News. , , , , , ,
After intense pressure by the U.S. on Panama to return possession of its canal to Washington because the Trump administration thinks China is threatening it, the Central American nation on Sunday sought a compromise by announcing it would study whether or not to renew contracts with a Chinese company managing two ports on the waterway and would withdraw from China’s Belt and Road Initiative. The announcement was made by Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino after meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Panama City.

Panama: Self-Determination And National Popular Unity

February 2, 2025 Abdiel Rodríguez Reyes, Orinoco Tribune. , , , , , , ,
The peoples have the right to decide their own collective destiny as established by the Bandung Conference in 1955 and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966, which was not gratuitous but a product of the struggle of the peripheral countries for their decolonization. Amid this reality, the United States never gave up extending the Monroe Doctrine to the present day. Making the situation worse, imperial irredentism becomes explicit with President Donald Trump. The Panamanian people’s distrust of the political elite at this juncture is being reproduced in the collective imagination in a marked disinterest in Trump’s imperial irredentism.

Trump Vows To ‘Expand’ US territory, Invokes Manifest Destiny

January 23, 2025 Ben Norton, Geopolitical Economy. , , , , , ,
Donald Trump began his second term as president by vowing to grow the US empire. In his inauguration speech, Trump used explicitly imperialist rhetoric, promising to “expand our territory”. He even invoked “Manifest Destiny”, a concept employed by 19th-century US colonialists to justify ethnically cleansing Indigenous nations and stealing their land. “The United States will once again consider itself a growing nation, one that increases our wealth, expands our territory, builds our cities, raises our expectations, and carries our flag into new and beautiful horizons”, Trump said, adding, “And we will pursue our Manifest Destiny into the stars”.

Hyperimperialism, The Fall Of Syria And Capitalist Gangsters

January 21, 2025 Mnar Adley, MintPress News. , , , , , , , , , , ,
As 2025 begins, California is on fire. And it feels like much of the rest of the world is burning, too. From the slaughter in the Middle East to a new Cold War brewing in Asia, everywhere we look is filled with uncertainty. At home, the California wildfires have exposed much of the true face of capitalism. From prison laborers risking their lives for pennies by fighting the blazes to massive price hikes for rents in Southern California, the U.S. is crumbling. Yet externally, America is as aggressive as ever. Only last month, it helped force through a coup against the Assad government in Syria, and Trump has made noises about using force against Panama, Greenland, and has threatened Canada, Cuba, Venezuela and other nations in the Global South.

Panamanian Movements Vow To Resist Trump’s Threats

January 21, 2025 People's Dispatch. , , , ,
Panamanian movements have expressed their readiness to resist US President Donald Trump’s threats to Panama’s sovereignty. On January 20, as part of a mobilization of trade unions and social movements in Panama City in defense of the public pension system, they will also denounce the expansionist threats of Trump. At a rally in December, Trump said that the fees being charged at the Panama canal are too high and that if they did not come down, “we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to us, in full, quickly and without question.”

ALBA-TCP Condemns Trump’s Statements About Panama Canal

December 28, 2024 Ultimas Noticias, Orinoco Tribune. , , , , ,
On Tuesday, the member states of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America-People’s Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP) expressed their strongest condemnation of United States President-elect Donald Trump’s statement in which he threatened to take control of the Panama Canal. Through a statement published on Telegram, the multilateral bloc condemned this new threat to the Latin American and Caribbean region. It also reaffirmed its support for the Republic of Panama in defending its sovereignty, territorial integrity, and self-determination.

How A US President And JP Morgan Made Panama

December 28, 2024 Ed Vulliamy, Portside. , , , , ,
This goes back a long way. The Panamanian state was originally created to function on behalf of the rich and self-seeking of this world – or rather their antecedents in America – when the 20th century was barely born. Panama was created by the United States for purely selfish commercial reasons, right on that historical hinge between the imminent demise of Britain as the great global empire, and the rise of the new American imperium. The writer Ken Silverstein put it with estimable simplicity in an article for Vice magazine two years ago: “In 1903, the administration of Theodore Roosevelt created the country after bullying Colombia into handing over what was then the province of Panama.

Venezuela Expels Diplomats From Seven Countries After Blatant Interference

July 31, 2024 Orinoco Tribune. , , , , , , , , , , , ,
The Venezuelan Minister for Foreign Affairs Yván Gil, through a statement, announced that the Venezuelan government decided to withdraw all diplomatic personnel from its embassies in Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Peru, Panama, the Dominican Republic, and Uruguay. The announcement followed the unprecedented interventionist aggression and interference in Venezuelan internal affairs carried out by these seven countries. In addition, the minister requested that the governments of these countries immediately withdraw their representatives from Venezuelan territory. In diplomatic jargon, this essentially constitutes a complete diplomatic rupture.
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