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Panama Canal

Panama Tries Compromise; US Says It’s Not Enough

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

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.

Panamanian Movements Vow To Resist Trump’s Threats

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.”

The Panama Canal: From Teddy Roosevelt To Donald Trump

Just what is motivating President-elect Donald Trump’s threats to take over the Panama Canal, buy Greenland and make Canada the 51st U.S. state? Does he think he can impose a new historic era of U.S. domination, or is he simply following in the footsteps of his imperialist predecessors — Republicans and Democrats alike? During his first term, Trump’s “America First” policy was purportedly based on U.S. isolationism. Is his recent demand that the Panama Canal “be returned to us, in full, quickly and without question,” an indication his second term has emboldened him to assert U.S. interests abroad more aggressively?

ALBA-TCP Condemns Trump’s Statements About Panama Canal

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.

Trump’s Christmas Message Is One Of Chaos, Turbulence And Retaliation

Letting no holiday opportunity go without stirring up chaos, turbulence and retaliation, by mid-morning on Christmas Day, President-elect Trump posted a series of insensitive, brazen and mean spirited “Merry Christmas” messages on his Truth Social platform. These posts for both national and international issues were followed, predictably, by over two dozen re-posts of articles or other social media posts forecasting his political agenda on topics including troubled Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth and his designation of Greenland and the Panama Canal as U.S. national security necessities, tariffs on Mexico and Canada, and reinstatement of the federal death penalty that Biden had suspended.

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