Panama reiterates sovereignty over canal amid Trump threat

PANAMA CITY, Dec. 26 (Xinhua) -- Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino on Thursday reiterated the country's sovereignty over the Panama Canal in response to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's threat to take control of the canal.

"The Panama Canal belongs to Panama, to the Panamanians, after the struggle of generations that began on the very day the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty was signed" for the construction of the interoceanic route in 1903, Mulino said in reply to a question put by Xinhua during his weekly press conference.

"There is no possibility of discussing anything that seeks to reconsider the legal-political reality of the Panama Canal... There is nothing to talk about. The Canal is Panamanian, period," he said.

Mulino recalled the moments that the Central American country "has suffered" in its relationship with the United States regarding the interoceanic canal.

"Several treaties were added to the 1903 one in terms of economic aid, economic payments that the old Canal Commission of Panama, which was a federal entity attached to the U.S. President, made to us," he said.

"It was a pittance of what we were paid as a country until 1999," said the Panamanian president.

The canal remained under the control of the United States until the Torrijos-Carter Treaties expired on Dec. 31, 1999, when the United States returned the complete administration of the canal to Panama.

Mulino made it clear that he will wait until the new U.S. government takes office on Jan. 20, 2025.

"At this moment, Mr. Trump is not president nor does he have any government. So I will wait until Jan. 20 to have a government in front of me with which I can talk about this and many issues that interest Panama on the bilateral agenda," he said.

Regarding the possibility of reducing tolls for U.S. ships in the future, Mulino said, "no, because in the canal the tolls are not made at the whim of the president or the administrator, there is an established process for setting tolls that is a public and open process."