According to anonymous sources speaking with Politico, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is set to visit Panama next week. President Donald Trump has suggested that he will take the Panama Canal back. He said the US gave it to Panama, not China. China bought up the land around it and maintained it poorly through Hong Kong companies. If the Chinese wanted to, they could cut 40% of US and other commerce worldwide.
The US helped Panama win their independence from Colombia, bought the land and water used for the Canal, and built the Canal with US blood and sweat, and many died. Then-President Jimmy Carter gave it away to please rioting communists. Later administrations let it slip away as the agreement neared its end in 2003. It’s now poorly kept up, and they charge too much for US ships. It was free when the US owned it.
The officials said Rubio will also visit Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica, and the Dominican Republic.
The trip will be Rubio’s first foreign travel as Secretary of State. However, the travel plans are tentative.
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Late Wednesday, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce confirmed the overall travel plan and said Rubio prioritized the Western Hemisphere because “it’s where we live.”
Panama and Illegal Immigration
Rubio will likely cover the new foreign policy agenda, which is to curtail illegal immigration and the reclaiming of the Panama Canal.
Panamanian officials recoiled at Trump’s comments on the strategically vital waterway.
“The Panama Canal belongs to Panama and will continue to belong to Panama,” Panama’s president, José Raúl Mulino, said at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week. “The Panama Canal is not a concession or a gift from the United States.”
Other countries Rubio plans to visit, including Guatemala and El Salvador, have also served as significant waypoints for migrants trying to reach the U.S. southern border.
In one of his first memos to State Department employees, Rubio called mass migration “among the most consequential issues of our time” and said that under his watch, the department would work with countries in the Western Hemisphere to curtail illegal immigration and negotiate “the repatriation of illegal immigrants.”
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