By BILL BARROW and WILL WEISSERT
PHOENIX (AP) — Donald
Trump suggested Sunday that his new administration could try to
regain control of the Panama
Canal that the United States “foolishly” ceded to its Central American ally, contending
that shippers are charged “ridiculous” fees to pass through the vital transportation channel linking the Atlantic
and Pacific Oceans.
Panama’s conservative president José Raúl Mulino, who was elected in May on a pro-business platform, roundly
rejected that notion as an affront to his country’s sovereignty.
The Republican president-elect’s comment came during his first major
rally since winning the White House on Nov. 5. He also basked in his
return to power as a large audience of conservatives cheered along. It
was a display of party unity at odds with a just-concluded budget fight on Capitol Hill, where some GOP lawmakers openly
defied their leader’s demands.
Addressing supporters at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest in Arizona,
Trump pledged that his “dream team Cabinet” would deliver a booming
economy, seal U.S. borders and quickly settle wars in the Middle East
and Ukraine.
“I can proudly proclaim that the Golden Age of America is upon us,”
Trump said. “There’s a spirit that we have now that we didn’t have just
a short while ago.”
His appearance capped a four-day pep rally that drew more than 20,000
activists and projected an image of Republican cohesion despite the past
week’s turbulence in Washington with Trump pulling strings from his
Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida as Congress worked to avoid a government
shutdown heading into the holidays.
House Republicans spiked a bipartisan deal after Trump and Elon Musk,
his billionaire ally, expressed their opposition on social media. Budget
hawks flouted Trump’s demand that they raise the nation’s debt ceiling, which would have spared some new
rounds of the same fight after he takes office on Jan. 20, with
Republicans holding narrow control of the House and Senate. The final
agreement did not address the issue and there was no shutdown.
Trump, in his remarks in Phoenix, did not mention the congressional
drama, though he did reference Musk’s growing power. To suggestions that
“President Trump has ceded the presidency to Elon,” Trump made clear,
“No, no. That’s not happening.”
“He’s not gonna be president,” Trump said.
The president-elect opened the speech by saying that “we want to try to
bring everybody together. We’re going to try. We’re going to really give
it a shot.” Then he suggested Democrats have “lost their confidence” and
are “befuddled” after the election but eventually will ”come over to our
side because we want to have them.”
Atop a list of grievances — some old, some new — was the Panama Canal.
“We’re being ripped off at the Panama Canal,” he said, bemoaning that
his country ”foolishly gave it away.”
The United States built the canal in the early 1900s as it looked for
ways to facilitate the transit of commercial and military vessels
between its coasts. Washington relinquished control of the waterway to Panama
on Dec. 31, 1999, under a treaty signed in 1977 by President Jimmy
Carter.
The canal depends on reservoirs to operate its locks and was heavily
affected by 2023 Central American droughts that forced it to
substantially reduce the number of daily slots for crossing ships. With
fewer ships using the canal each day, administrators also increased the
fees that are charged all shippers for reserving a slot.
With weather returning to normal in the later months of this year,
transit on the canal has normalized. But price increases are still
expected for next year.
Mulino, Panama’s president, has been described as a conservative
populist who aligns with Trump on many issues. Panama is a strong U.S.
ally and the canal is crucial for its economy, generating about
one-fifth of that government’s annual revenue.
Still, Trump said, that, once his second term is underway, “If the
principles, both moral and legal, of this magnanimous gesture of giving
are not followed, then we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned
to the United States of America, in full, quickly and without question.”
“I’m not going to stand for it,” Trump said. “So to the officials of
Panama, please be guided accordingly.”
He did not explain how that would be possible.
Shortly after Trump’s speech, Mulino released a video declaring that
“every square meter of the canal belongs to Panama and will continue to
belong” to his country.
Without mentioning Trump by name, Mulino addressed Trump’s complaints
over rising fees for ships crossing the canal, saying they are set by
experts who take into account operational costs, and supply and demand
factors.
“The tariffs are not set on a whim” Mulino said. He noted that Panama
has expanded the canal over the years to increase ship traffic “on its
own initiative,” and added that shipping fee increases help pay for
improvements.
“Panamanians may have different views on many issues” Mulino said. “But
when it comes to our canal, and our sovereignty, we will all unite under
our Panamanian flag.”
Trump then took to his social media site to offer in response, “We’ll
see about that!” He also posted a picture of a U.S. flag planted in the
canal zone under the phrase, “Welcome to the United States Canal!”
The canal aside, Trump’s appearance at Turning Point’s annual gathering
affirmed the growing influence the group and its founder, Charlie Kirk, have had in the conservative
movement. Kirk’s group hired thousands of field organizers across
presidential battlegrounds, helping Trump make key gains among
infrequent voters and other groups of people that have trended more
Democratic in recent decades, including younger voters, Black men and
Latino men.
”You had Turning Point’s grassroots armies,” Trump said. “It’s not my
victory, it’s your victory.”
Trump on Sunday also announced several new members of his incoming
administration, most notably:
-Stephen Miran, who worked at the Treasury Department in Trump’s first
term, to lead the Council of Economic Advisers, an executive branch
agency charged with providing objective economic advice to the
president.
—Callista Gingrich to be the U.S. ambassador to Switzerland. Gingrich
was U.S. ambassador to the Holy See in Trump’s first term. She is
married to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
Separately, Australian billionaire Anthony Pratt announced he was
donating $1.1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund to complement the $14
million that he said he already had given to the Make America Great
Again Inc. super political action committee — making him one of the
president-elect’s top donors.
Pratt is chairman of Pratt Industries, which uses recycled paper and
boxes as a raw material in a process that produces new cardboard.
