EXTRA EDITION: Trump's Epic Panama Win
In Huge Win for Trump's New America First Foreign Policy, Panama Ends Key Canal Deal with China, Strengthens Ties with U.S. After Rubio’s Visit
by Rod D. Martin
February 3, 2025
In an epic win for President Trump’s America First foreign policy, Panama is ending China’s control of the Panama Canal, a waterway absolutely essential to U.S. security and which the President had threatened to take back if changes weren’t made.
The agreement comes just two weeks into Trump’s new Administration, as a result of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s visit to Panama City and talks with President José Raúl Mulino.
Mulino reaffirmed Panama’s sovereignty over the 51-mile Panama Canal, which connects the Pacific Ocean to the Caribbean Sea. However, he made it clear that his administration will not renew the 2017 memorandum of understanding that aligned Panama with China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Instead, Panama will seek greater U.S. investment and strategic collaboration.
“This visit opens the door to build new relations and increase U.S. investment in Panama,” Mulino stated following his meeting with Rubio, marking the Secretary of State’s first international trip since his confirmation.
Trump’s Push to Reclaim the Canal
Rubio, formerly a U.S. senator from Florida before Trump appointed him America’s top diplomat, emphasized his commitment to advancing U.S. interests in the region.
Trump has made it clear that reclaiming control of the Panama Canal is a priority for his administration. House Republicans have already introduced legislation — the Panama Canal Repurchase Act — aimed at reacquiring the waterway from Panama.
If passed, the proposed legislation would empower the president and the secretary of state to enter negotiations with Panama for the canal’s reacquisition.
Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.), a key player on the House Select Committee on China and the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, backed the move.
“President Trump is right to consider repurchasing the Panama Canal,” Johnson said. “China’s interest in and presence around the canal is a cause for concern. America must project strength abroad—owning and operating the Panama Canal might be an important step toward a stronger America and a more secure globe.”
Rubio echoed this sentiment, writing on X that “the United States cannot, and will not, allow the Chinese Communist Party to continue with its effective and growing control over the Panama Canal area.”
The Geopolitical Stakes
Trump has long criticized China’s role in the canal’s operations, accusing Beijing of leveraging the waterway to extract six-figure tolls from U.S. vessels. The canal, built by the U.S., completed in 1914, and the single most expensive project in U.S. history (adjusted for inflation), was handed over to Panama by Jimmy Carter for just $1.
Even so, the treaties accomplishing this require Panama to keep the Canal neutral. It certainly cannot be handed over to America’s enemies, as Panama has done. Trump asserts that Panama’s breaking its treaty obligations allows the U.S. to take the Canal back.
The U.S. State Department estimates that approximately 72% of all ships using the canal are either coming from or heading to American ports—a stark reminder of its importance to U.S. trade and national security.
Without access to the canal, vessels would be forced to reroute around South America, adding roughly 8,000 miles to their journey. The economic impact of such a shift would be substantial, both in terms of costs and supply chain disruptions.
Rep. Johnson’s office underscored the financial implications, noting that the canal processes over 10,000 ships annually, generating billions in toll revenues that could instead benefit the U.S. economy.
Beyond trade, the canal remains a vital corridor for U.S. military operations, with both the Coast Guard and Department of Defense relying on it for strategic mobility. China’s control of access to both ends of the Canal threatens the U.S. Navy’s ability to respond to a crisis, such as a CCP invasion of Taiwan.
While discussions over Panama’s economic ties with China dominated Rubio’s visit, broader geopolitical and military concerns are clearly driving the U.S. push to reclaim influence over this key global chokepoint.
Victory for “America First” Foreign Policy
As I have written consistently, America’s foreign policy has been dominated for 80 years by the need to subsidize allies, and thus tie them to us, to defeat the Soviet Union in the Cold War. This made perfect sense and was well worth almost any cost, including grossly unfair trade deals and imbalanced defense spending, though even in those years boondoggles like the Panama Canal giveaway were a bridge too far.
The problem? The Cold War is over. We won. 35 years ago. What made sense then doesn’t make sense now.
Am I suggesting that we should pull out of NATO, or stop ensuring freedom of the seas, or take an isolationist stance? Not at all, and neither is Donald Trump.
But it’s long past time that we stopped needlessly subsidizing economies that long ago recovered from World War II and that will not look out for themselves.
Panama doesn’t even have an army. It abolished it in 1995. It is wholly dependent on the U.S. for its defense.
Why do we let Germany get away with spending just 1.4% of GDP on defense, as it has done for years, and buying all its energy from Russia, while NATO claims its biggest threat is Russia? Why did Joe Biden greenlight the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline after Trump blocked it for four years? Why do we thereby subsidize German exports and welfare programs at the expense of U.S. workers?
And likewise, why would we EVER let Panama hand the Canal to the Chinese?
But Democrats did. Those days are now over.
As I complete this “extra edition”, I see that Mexico just caved on the President’s demands, narrowly averting a tariff war. Donald Trump understands what the Uniparty does not: that all these decades of freeloading means that all these countries are vastly more dependent on the U.S. market than we are on theirs.
And using that fact can make a better, fairer deal for absolutely everybody, our partners very much included.
Smaller nuclear energy plants.
Safe. Even I would move next to one, and nothing could have gotten me to do so back in the China Syndrome days.
Green energy is nice, icing on the cake, but won't get anywhere near the energy needs.
Nuclear power.
Then tell the oil producing countries, as well as LNG, what they can do with their fossil fuels.
US has enough capacity to easily meet demand for oil as lubricants, etc.
Electric cars, nuclear power, some green energy.
Get rid of plastics for any use that involves human nourishment: no plastic bottles of water or any liquid, no food packaged in plastics, nothing. It accumulates in the body, and in men it can cause the prostrate to enlarge because it blocks the flows, to include getting up several times each night when older. Go back to drinking glasses of tap water from good sources (no fluorides).
I don't believe it's true that Germany is still "... buying all its energy from Russia". Unless I remember wrong, its gas deliveries stopped when the pipeline was blown up. Since then they've been buying natural gas in the form of LNG, which is certainly more expensive, but geopolitically more prudent.
Aside from that, one has to question the sanity of a German government that was determined to close its nuclear power plants after the 2011 meltdown in Japan. The geological conditions that caused that disaster simply don't exist in Germany,