US Defense Secretary Peat Hegseth said that Beijing was threatening to operate the Panama Canal, China has slammed the “bullying nature” of the United States. Beijing said that US authorities had “attacked” on the major waterway to carry forward their own interests. China is also allegedly affecting the US investment firm Blackrock Blackrock’s Trump administration-supported sales of the two major Panama Canal ports operated by Hong Kong-based CK Hachisan.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Lynn Gian said in a regular press briefing, “Senior American officials have maliciously attacked China, reduced China-Narma Cooperation, once again highlighted the United States’s bullying nature.”
This came in a statement on X after the Chinese Embassy in Panama, said that the US has used “Blackmail” to return its own interests and does not have the right to interfere with “us” “who chooses to trade with Panama.
The embassy wrote, “The US has launched a sensational campaign about the ‘theoretical Chinese danger’ in an attempt to vandalize the Chinese-Namnian cooperation, which lies in its geopolitical interests of the United States,” the embassy has written.
Pete Hegseth’s Panama Yatra
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, second senior officer who visited Panama, Since taking over in January, I vowed to “withdraw the US-Billt” canal “with the” US-Billt “canal withdrawn” since he took over in January, which he sees as China’s influence on the waterway. Hegseth’s visit to Panama arrives two months after American Secretary Marco Rubio.
“Today, the Panama Canal is facing the dangers going on … The United States will not allow the Communist China or any other country to endanger the operation or integrity of the canal,” Hegseth said in a speech at a police station located on the shipping route on Tuesday.
He also met Panama President Jose Raul Mulino, in which the two issued a joint statement that confirmed security relations. However, there was a notable discrepancy in versions released by both sides on the issue of Panama’s sovereignty on the canal.
A Spanish-language statement issued by Mulino’s office said, “Secretary Hegseth recognized the Panama’s leadership and the ineligible sovereignty on the Panama Canal and its surrounding areas.”
This sentence did not appear in the English-language statement released by the US government.
However, shortly after that visit, Panama announced that the Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Landmark Global Infrastructure Program, The Belt and Road Initiative, was exiting.
Panama Canal Issue
Hong Kong company CK Hachison operates two ports at both ends of the canal connecting Atlantic and Pacific, through which all global shipping is five percent of the pass.
The Trump administration has highly pressurized the Panama to reduce the Chinese influence on the canal, which the Washington sees as a threat to the US national security. Panama, however, denied that China practices unfair control over the waterway.
But to confiscate the canal, Trump has repeatedly facing the hazards, Panama has pressured CK Hachisan to get out of the country. In January, it began an audit of the Panama ports – auxiliary – to determine if he was respected his concession contract.
After the months of President Trump, repeatedly, saying that China kept a lot of control over the Panama Canal, in March, CK Hachison announced an agreement to sell 43 ports in 23 countries – which included two of its two on the canal – a giant American asset manager Blackrock led by a group $ 19 billion for a group led by Blackrock.
According to an AFP report, the deal was postponed as a win by President Donald Trump and was to be signed on 2 April.
On the eve of Hegseth’s visit, after the controller of the Panama, it was further delayed that the audit had revealed the “several violations” of the contract and said that Panama had not received $ 1.2 billion, which was outstanding the operator.