WASHINGTON: US President-elect Donald Trump while slamming what he called \u201cunfair fees\u201d for American ships passing through the Panama Canal threatened to demand control of the waterway be returned to Washington.<\/p>\n
The main users of the passage are the United States, China, Japan and South Korea.<\/p>\n
However, Trump hinted at China\u2019s growing influence around the canal, a worrying trend for American interests as US businesses depend on the channel to move goods between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur Navy and Commerce have been treated in a very unfair and injudicious way. The fees being charged by Panama are ridiculous,\u201d Trump said on Saturday in a post shared on his Truth Social platform.
\n\u201cThis complete \u2018rip-off\u2019 of our country will immediately stop.\u201d Under a 1977 deal signed by Democratic President Jimmy Carter, the Panama Canal, which was completed by the United States in 1914, was returned to Panama, though the Central American country took full control in 1999.
\n\u201cIt was solely for Panama to manage, not China, or anyone else,\u201d Trump said. \u201cWe would and will NEVER let it fall into the wrong hands!\u201d
\nHe continued that if Panama could not ensure \u201cthe secure, efficient and reliable operation\u201d of the channel, \u201cthen we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to us, in full, and without question.\u201d
\nAuthorities in Panama did not immediately react to President-elect Trump\u2019s post.
\nAlthough he does not officially take office until next month, Trump has nevertheless been flexing his political influence in the waning days of President Joe Biden\u2019s administration.
\nThe real estate mogul boasted on the campaign trail that as an entrepreneur, he was uniquely positioned to fight for US business interests.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON: US President-elect Donald Trump while slamming what he called \u201cunfair fees\u201d for American ships passing through the Panama Canal threatened to demand control of the waterway be returned to Washington. The main users of the passage are the United States, China, Japan and South Korea. However, Trump hinted at China\u2019s growing influence around the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4108,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4107"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4109,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4107\/revisions\/4109"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}