US President-elect Donald Trump criticized what he described as unfair fees imposed on American ships passing through the Panama Canal, and threatened to demand that control of this waterway be returned to Washington.
Trump referred in a veiled way to China’s growing influence around the canal, which is a major shipping route for American companies and interests that ship goods through it between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
“Our navy and trade are being treated unfairly,” he wrote on his platform, Truth Social. “The tariffs imposed by Panama are ridiculous.” He added: “This plundering of our country will stop immediately.”
He said that if Panama could not guarantee the “safe, efficient and reliable operation” of the canal, “we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to us in its entirety.”
Control of the Panama Canal, which the United States completed in 1914, was returned to the Central American country under a 1977 treaty signed by Democratic President Jimmy Carter.
Panama assumed full control in 1999. Trump continued, “Management of the canal was left to Panama alone, and not to China or any other party.” We will never let it fall into the wrong hands!”
In another context, the Financial Times quoted sources in US President-elect Donald Trump’s team that his administration may announce Washington’s withdrawal from the World Health Organization on his inauguration day, next January 20.
The newspaper pointed out that if the United States withdraws from the World Health Organization, the organization may lose a large portion of its funding, which may jeopardize its ability to combat medical crises such as the coronavirus pandemic.
At the end of last November, Politico reported that the World Health Organization might lose about a quarter of its funding if Trump decided to withdraw his country from the organization.
In early July 2020, Trump, as president, sent formal notification to Congress of his country’s withdrawal from the World Health Organization. Trump explained his decision by saying that the organization “refused to implement the required reforms,” accusing it of covering up the extent of the spread of the Corona virus epidemic for the benefit of China.
The process of the United States’ withdrawal from the organization was supposed to be completed in July 2021, but this matter was not completed as the current US President Joe Biden signed an executive order on the first day of his presidency in 2021 to return the country to the organization.
Last updated: December 22, 2024 – 20:09
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