Trump Won’t Rule Out Military Action to Take Panama Canal

The Hill’s Alex Gangitano reported Tuesday that “President-elect Trump on Tuesday refused to commit to not using the U.S. military to gain control of the Panama Canal, after vowing last month to take over operation of the key passageway.”

“Trump was questioned during a press conference at Mar-a-Lago about his recently targeting the canal as well as Greenland for possible American expansion and if he would say he would not use the military to gain control of it,” Gangitano reported. “‘I’m not going to commit to that. It might be that you have to do something,’ Trump said. ‘Look, the Panama Canal is vital to our country, it’s being operated by China, China. And we gave the Panama Canal to Panama, we didn’t give it to China.'”

However, Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino “vehemently denied President-elect Trump’s claims of Chinese interference in the Panama Canal” when Trump first brought up the idea of retaking the canal in December, Axios’ Rebecca Falconer and Ben Berkowitz reported at the time. “‘There is absolutely not any interference’ from China or any other nation in the operation of the canal, Mulino said during a (December) briefing, emphasizing that Panama is open for business equally to all interested parties.”

Reuters’ Steve Holland and Joseph Ax reported Wednesday morning that “Panama’s top diplomat also pushed back on the incoming U.S. leader’s threat to retake the key global waterway, which the U.S. had built and owned before handing over control to the Central American nation in 1999. ‘The only hands that control the canal are Panamanian and that’s how it will continue to be,’ Foreign Minister Javier Martinez-Acha told reporters on Tuesday.”

President-elect Donald Trump says he “can’t assure” that he won’t use military or economic coercion in his goal of controlling Greenland and the Panama Canal. More: https://t.co/B8LiUFxCms pic.twitter.com/qMJWlDpF2r

— NewsNation (@NewsNation) January 7, 2025

Gangitano reported that Trump “was later questioned on if he has drawn up plans for acquisition and replied that he’s ‘not at that stage,’ noting that he hasn’t taken office yet.”

Trump Rails Against US Giving Up Canal

Politico’s Irie Sentner reported that during the same press conference, “Trump slammed Jimmy Carter’s agreement to transfer ownership of the Panama Canal to Panama as a ‘disgrace’ — on the first day the late former president is set to lie in state at the U.S. Capitol.”

“‘Jimmy Carter gave it to them for $1 and they were supposed to treat us well. I thought it was a terrible thing to do,’ Trump said Tuesday at a news conference at Mar-a-Lago,” according to Sentner’s reporting. “…The Democrat signed the Torrijos-Carter Treaties in 1977 during his one term in office, setting in motion the 1999 transfer of the U.S.-built infrastructural wonder to the country of Panama. No part of those agreements included a $1 sale.”

“‘Nobody wants to talk about the Panama Canal now, it’s inappropriate I guess, because it’s a bad part of the Carter legacy,’ Trump said later in the press conference,” Sentner reported. “He added that Carter was ‘a good man’ and ‘a very fine person,’ but that ‘giving the Panama Canal to Panama was a very big mistake.'”

Canal of Extreme Importance to U.S. Ag Shipping

Farm News Media’s Dennis Rudat reported in January that “representing 14% of all U.S. maritime trade, 72% of all the cargo transiting the Panama Canal is either coming from or going to the U.S., including a substantial portion of U.S. agricultural exports, according to (to American Farm Bureau Federation Economist Betty) Resnick.”

“‘So, the Panama Canal is really a critical choke point for U.S. agriculture and U.S. economy in general,’ Resnick said, with 18% of corn exports, 32% of soybean exports and over 90% of sorghum exports moving through the shipping canal,” Rudat reported.

Axios’ Ben Berkowitz reported that globally, “about 2.5% of all global maritime trade passes through the canal. … About 10,000 ships a year transit the canal, though in recent times severe drought has limited capacity and helped push transit rates higher.”