WASHINGTON: Marco Rubio heads Saturday to Panama on his debut trip abroad as US secretary of state as he looks for how to follow up on President Donald Trump\u2019s extraordinary threat to seize the Panama Canal.
\nRubio\u2019s travel comes the same day that Trump\u2019s promised tariffs on the three largest US trading partners \u2013 Canada, Mexico and China \u2013 are set to come into effect, another step showing a far more aggressive US foreign policy.
\nRubio will travel later to four other small Latin American countries for an agenda focused on migration, a highly unusual first trip for the top US diplomat, whose predecessors were more likely to start the job with language of cooperation with major allies.
\nTrump has refused to rule out military force to seize the Panama Canal, which the United States handed over at the end of 1999, saying that China has exerted too much control through its investment in surrounding ports.
\nIn his inaugural address, Trump said that the United States will be \u201ctaking it back\u201d \u2013 and he refused to back down Friday.
\n\u201cThey\u2019ve already offered to do many things,\u201d Trump said of Panama, \u201cbut we think it\u2019s appropriate that we take it back.\u201d
\nHe alleged that Panama was taking down Chinese-language signs to cover up how \u201cthey\u2019ve totally violated the agreement\u201d on the canal.
\n\u201cMarco Rubio is going over this talk to the gentleman that\u2019s in charge,\u201d Trump told reporters.
\nPanamanian President Jose Raul Mulino, generally considered an ally of the United States, has ruled out opening negotiations after complaining to the United Nations about Trump\u2019s threat.
\n\u201cI cannot negotiate, much less open a process of negotiations on the canal,\u201d Mulino said Thursday.
\nThe issue \u201cis sealed. The canal is Panama\u2019s,\u201d Mulino said.
\nMulino\u2019s government, however, has ordered an audit of CK Hutchison Holdings, the Hong Kong company that operates ports on both sides of the canal.
\nIt remains to be seen if or how Rubio carries out the threat. Some experts believe that Trump was simply applying pressure and could declare a win by the United States ramping up investment in the canal \u2013 an outcome that most Panamanians would welcome.
\nRubio has played down the military option but also not contradicted his boss.
\n\u201cI think the president\u2019s been pretty clear he wants to administer the canal again. Obviously, the Panamanians are not big fans of that idea,\u201d Rubio told SiriusXM radio in an interview before the trip.
\nHe acknowledged that Panama\u2019s government \u201cgenerally is pro-American\u201d but said that the Panama Canal is a \u201ccore national interest for us.\u201d
\n\u201cWe cannot allow any foreign power \u2013 particularly China \u2013 to hold that kind of potential control over it that they do. That just can\u2019t continue,\u201d Rubio said.
\nThe canal remains the crucial link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and coasts, with 40 percent of US container traffic going through it.
\nTrump administration officials said they were blaming not Mulino but previous Panamanian president Juan Carlos Varela who in 2017 \u2013 during Trump\u2019s first term as president \u2013 moved to sever ties with Taiwan in favor of China.
\n\u201cIt wasn\u2019t just a diplomatic recognition. He literally opened the floodgates and gave strategic assets throughout the Canal Zone to China,\u201d said Mauricio Claver-Carone, the US special envoy on Latin America.
\nHe charged that Panama unfairly raised costs for US ships while also seeking assistance from the United States for canal upkeep. Panama attributes rising costs to the effects of a drought, exacerbated by climate change.
\nTrump has quickly made clear he will exercise swift pressure to bend other countries to his will, especially on his signature issue of deporting undocumented immigrants.
\nOn Sunday, he threatened major tariffs against Colombia to force its president to back down after he insisted that repatriated migrants be treated in a more dignified way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON: Marco Rubio heads Saturday to Panama on his debut trip abroad as US secretary of state as he looks for how to follow up on President Donald Trump\u2019s extraordinary threat to seize the Panama Canal. Rubio\u2019s travel comes the same day that Trump\u2019s promised tariffs on the three largest US trading partners \u2013 Canada, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":76421,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76394"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76424,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76394\/revisions\/76424"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}