Panamanians had been caught off guard to seek out themselves on the heart of President Trump’s expansionist agenda. We go to the canal, attend protests and report on Rubio’s message to the folks of Panama.
SUNTRACS, the Panamanian building employee’s union, take to Panama Metropolis’s streets to protest President Donald Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s arrival to Panama on January thirty first 2025.
Tomas Ayuso for NPR
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Tomas Ayuso for NPR
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
It is a spot that has sat on the heart of worldwide commerce for greater than a century, connecting two oceans. The issues Individuals use on daily basis go by right here, from automobiles to meals. And now, this spot can be on the heart of President Trump’s international expansionist agenda. This morning, Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrapped up a go to to Panama, and here is what his boss, President Trump, stated yesterday.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: China’s operating the Panama Canal. That was not given to China. That was given to Panama foolishly. However they violated the settlement, and we’ll take it again or one thing very highly effective goes to occur.
SHAPIRO: His declare that China operates the canal is fake, and we’ll dig into that extra in a minute.
When Rubio wakened right here in Panama Metropolis yesterday morning, he went to providers at a church the place cameras weren’t allowed. However a special Sunday morning service stay streamed into Panamanians houses all around the nation.
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UNIDENTIFIED SINGERS: (Singing, inaudible).
SHAPIRO: Archbishop Jose Domingo Ulloa supplied a homily that provides you a way of how Panamanians are feeling proper now.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JOSE DOMINGO ULLOA: (Talking Spanish).
SHAPIRO: “Sovereignty and the good name of Panama are not given away or negotiated,” he stated from the pulpit. “They are defended with determination and love for the homeland.”
Trump’s deal with the canal has introduced out a nationalistic streak right here in Panama. The nation’s flag flutters alongside roadsides, on buildings and in entrance yards. Panamanians instructed me they do not even see this many flags on Independence Day. After Sunday morning providers, Secretary Rubio met with Panama’s President Jose Raul Mulino. Here is how the president described that assembly.
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PRESIDENT JOSE RAUL MULINO: (Talking Spanish).
SHAPIRO: “I didn’t feel any sense of controversy, just a climate of respect,” he stated.
The State Division described issues in a different way. In response to a spokesperson’s assertion, Rubio instructed Mulino that President Trump has made a preliminary dedication that China has an excessive amount of affect over the canal, which he says violates worldwide treaties. The assertion continued, quote, “absent immediate changes, it would require the United States to take measures necessary to protect its rights.” Rubio didn’t remark publicly on the assembly. President Mulino instructed reporters he is glad to debate immigration and drug trafficking, however the canal shouldn’t be up for debate.
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MULINO: (Talking Spanish).
SHAPIRO: “Panama’s sovereignty is not in question. That is very important,” he stated.
Panamanians will inform you that this battle is about identification, neocolonialism and whether or not robust nations can push round weaker ones. And that will all be true, however narrowly talking, this battle is particularly a few 51-mile waterway that’s important to international commerce. Forty % of U.S. maritime site visitors passes by this canal. Panama absolutely took management of the passage in 1999. However when President Jimmy Carter signed these treaties again in 1977, he stated the agreements confirmed the type of chief he wished the U.S. to be.
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JIMMY CARTER: They marked the dedication of the USA to the assumption that equity and never drive ought to lie on the coronary heart of our dealings with the nations of the world.
SHAPIRO: That line about equity, not drive, is so significant to Panama, it’s truly on a metallic plaque on the base of a statue within the coronary heart of this metropolis. In 2016, Panama expanded the canal, and now about 35 ships go by every day. The U.S. accounts for greater than three-quarters of the site visitors.
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SHAPIRO: This is likely one of the few locations on the earth the place you truly wish to be on a sinking ship.
UNIDENTIFIED GUIDE: Be welcome to one of many wonders of the world. Be welcome to the Panama Canal.
SHAPIRO: The customer heart on the Miraflores Locks could also be the very best place to see the canal in motion. Image three huge steps. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of water flood into or out of the locks to drift huge ships one step at a time from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic or vice versa. Vacationers from all around the world come right here. A lot of the Panamanians you meet on the Miraflores Locks are internet hosting of us from out of city, like Edwin Scott (ph), who introduced a buddy from Mexico to indicate off his nation’s pleasure and pleasure.
EDWIN SCOTT: (Talking Spanish).
SHAPIRO: “For a Panamanian, there’s just no words,” he says. “The canal is the most important institution we have.” He believes this battle is not actually about Panama. He thinks his nation simply had the dangerous luck to get caught between two giants – the U.S. and China.
SCOTT: (Talking Spanish).
SHAPIRO: “I think Mr. Trump has this psychosis with Chinese people. There aren’t Chinese people in the canal,” he says.
What do you suppose will occur?
SCOTT: (Talking Spanish).
SHAPIRO: “I don’t know, because he’s obsessed with the Chinese people,” Scott says.
So again to China’s position right here, there isn’t any reality to Trump’s declare that China operates the canal. However an organization based mostly in Hong Kong, referred to as CK Hutchison Holdings, operates two of the 5 ports surrounding the canal. We requested the corporate for an interview, they usually declined. We additionally requested interviews with the Canal Authority, Secretary Rubio, the president of Panama and the mayor of Panama Metropolis. The truth that none of them agreed could also be an indication of simply how delicate this second is. So to make clear among the info right here, I referred to as ambassador John Feeley. He is a profession diplomat and former U.S. ambassador to Panama. Appointed late within the Obama administration, he stayed within the position for 2 years beneath Trump. He nonetheless is aware of a lot of folks in Panama, and he says this controversy caught all of them off guard.
JOHN FEELEY: And so I am telling the Panamanians that they should take this lethal severely.
SHAPIRO: He says he is been warning about China’s affect in Latin America since a minimum of 2017.
FEELEY: I attempted to get the Trump administration to pay much more consideration to Panama’s recognition of Beijing, and I bought nothing.
SHAPIRO: So with out being inflammatory, what’s the risk that China poses to the USA in Panama?
FEELEY: The risk shouldn’t be navy. The 2 port concessions {that a} Hong Kong-based firm function wouldn’t have the navy logistical functionality to close the canal down. The canal is run by an impartial company in Panama.
SHAPIRO: He says the risk from China is extra delicate. It is about financial engagement, and it stretches far past the Panama Canal to locations all around the area the place China is investing and the U.S. shouldn’t be.
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UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTOR: (Shouting in non-English language).
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting in non-English language).
SHAPIRO: In protests all around the metropolis, Panamanians made their emotions clear. In a single, building staff burned an American flag in the course of a serious road. At one other, a girl confirmed up on the end line pushing a cart. She shaved a large block of ice into snow cones, topped with condensed milk and fruit syrups.
(SOUNDBITE OF SHAVING ICE)
SHAPIRO: The academics union organized this demonstration.
MARLENAS NUNEZ: (Talking Spanish).
SHAPIRO: “The canal is ours,” says a highschool artwork trainer named Marlenas Nunez (ph).
NUNEZ: (Talking Spanish).
SHAPIRO: “He’ll have to kill us all,” she says. “We are small, but we have a huge heart.”
You’re a trainer.
NUNEZ: (Talking Spanish).
SHAPIRO: You aren’t a soldier.
NUNEZ: (Talking Spanish).
SHAPIRO: “No, but I’m willing to defend my canal,” she says.
Panama was the primary nation Rubio visited as secretary of state. However he saved a low profile, saying nothing publicly concerning the canal by all of his conferences and occasions yesterday. By the point he did say one thing on the file concerning the canal, he was in El Salvador, and he principally reiterated what President Trump had already stated.
We’ll be listening to voices from Panama all all through the present right this moment as we proceed internet hosting ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from the sting of the Panama Canal.
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