Secretary Of State Marco Rubio Scores Big Anti-China Win During First Foreign Trip
By Robert McGreevy, Daily Caller News Foundation | February 02, 2025
Panama will not be renewing a key infrastructure agreement with China, the Central American country’s president announced after meeting Sunday with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, according to The Associated Press (AP).
President Jose Raúl Mulino said Panama would not be renewing its agreement to participate in China’s Belt and Road Initiative, according to AP. Belt and Road is an infrastructure pact which serves to grant China a massive level of influence over countries throughout the world.
Mulino made the announcement following months of pressure from President Donald Trump over issues raised relating to Panama Canal access. In December 2024, Trump threatened to demand the canal — which was built by the United States — be returned to the U.S. if China was allowed to continue exploiting it.
“We would and will NEVER let it fall into the wrong hands! It was not given for the benefit of others, but merely as a token of cooperation with us and Panama,” Trump wrote Dec. 21, 2024 on Truth Social.
Mulino’s announcement marks an early victory for President Trump’s foreign policy agenda after Secretary Rubio made Panama the destination of his very first foreign trip as America’s top diplomatic appointee.
During the official visit, Rubio made clear to Panama’s leaders that “the current position of influence and control of the Chinese Communist Party over the Panama Canal” is unacceptable.
He also warned the U.S. would take “necessary measures” if Panama did not take immediate action to change the status quo, according to the State Department.
The State Department warned that China’s current influence over the canal likely violates the Treaty Concerning the Permanent Neutrality and Operation of the Panama Canal.
The State Department also called the meeting between Rubio and Panama “productive.” President Mulino called the engagement “respectful” and “positive,” adding that he didn’t “feel like there’s a real threat against the treaty and its validity,” according to AP.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio (R) and AES Panama CEO Andres Gluski talk during a tour at the company’s LNG terminal in Colon, Panama on February 2, 2025. Rubio arrived on the eve on his debut trip abroad as US secretary of state, as he looks for how to follow up on President Donald Trump’s extraordinary threat to seize the Panama Canal. MARK SCHIEFELBEIN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
China’s influence in the Canal region has steadily grown since President Jimmy Carter ceded control over it back to Panama in 1977.
In 2016, China’s Landbridge Group acquired Panama’s largest Atlantic port, Margarita Island, for $900 million.
In 2021, Panama granted a 25-year no-bid renewal to Hong Kong-based Hutchison Ports to continue to operate two separate ports on both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. That deal is presently undergoing an audit which could lead to a rebidding process, according to AP.
It is unclear if the reduction of Chinese influence from the port will be enough to satisfy Trump, who has repeatedly warned that America could seek to take back the Panama Canal.
President Mulino has responded to those threats, saying, “The Panama Canal belongs to Panama and will continue to belong to Panama. The Panama Canal is not a concession or a gift from the United States.”
Robert McGreevy is a reporter at the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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