PANAMA - Panama President José Raúl Mulino on Wednesday accused US President Donald Trump of ly-ing when he said in his address to Congress that his administration was “reclaiming” the Panama Canal.
Trump was referencing a deal announced Tuesday for a consortium led by the US investment management company BlackRock Inc to buy a controlling stake in the company held by a Chinese group that operates ports at both ends of the Panama Canal.
Panama maintains that it has full control over the canal and that the Hong Kong-based group’s operation of the ports did not amount to Chinese control over the waterway, and that therefore the sale to a US-based company would not represent any US “reclaiming” of the canal. Panama’s government on Tuesday called the sale a private transaction.
Mulino in a message posted to X on Wednesday, rejected that the deal came about because of US pressure. “I reject in the name of Panama and all Panamanians this new affront to the truth and our dignity as a nation,” he wrote. He accused Trump of “lying again”.
