Panama president says he won’t renew Belt and Road deal with China, as US demands less Chinese influence over canal
CNN
Panama’s president reiterated on Sunday that Panama’s sovereignty over the Panama Canal is not up for debate, saying that during talks with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio that he had addressed the United States’ concerns over China’s presence around the vital waterway.
Panama’s president reiterated on Sunday that Panama’s sovereignty over the Panama Canal is not up for debate, saying that during talks with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio that he had addressed the United States’ concerns over China’s presence around the vital waterway. President Raúl Mulino added however that Panama would not renew a 2017 memorandum of understanding to join China’s overseas development initiative, known as the Belt and Road, and suggested that the deal with China could end early. Panama will seek to work with the US on new investments, including infrastructure projects, he said. “I think this visit opens the door to build new relations … and try to increase as much as possible US investments in Panama,” Mulino told reporters on Sunday after Rubio’s first foreign trip as the United States’ top diplomat. Mulino’s comments were followed by a US State Department readout of the meeting, which said Rubio told Panama’s president and Foreign Minister Javier Martínez-Acha that concerns over China’s “control” of the Panama Canal may mean the US has to “take measures necessary to protect its rights” per a longstanding treaty on the neutrality and operation of the canal. Under the 1977 treaty, the US returned the canal to Panama’s control with the understanding that the waterway remain neutral. According to the agreement, the US could intervene militarily if the canal’s operations were disrupted by internal conflict or a foreign power. Today, more cargo than ever runs through the canal than it did during the years of US control. US President Donald Trump’s repeated and publicly stated desire for the US to retake control of the key waterway has already caused a diplomatic stir, with Mulino repeatedly stating that that Panama’s sovereignty over the canal is not up for debate.
Run 3 Space | Play Space Running Game
Traffic Jam 3D | Online Racing Game
Duck Hunt | Play Old Classic Game
Families were waiting at the airport to welcome home loved ones when their plane, just minutes from landing, collided midair with a military helicopter in a fiery explosion, plunging 67 lives full of promise into the cold, inky waters of the Potomac River.
President Donald Trump has quickly mobilized wide swaths of the federal government to arrest and detain undocumented immigrants in the United States, part of a broader strategy to amass a large enforcement machine.
The website of the US Agency for International Development went offline without explanation Saturday as thousands of furloughs, layoffs and program shutdowns continued amid President Donald Trump’s freeze on US-funded foreign aid and development worldwide.
President Donald Trump announced new tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China — signing them at his Mar-a-Lago club on Saturday.
In the wake of the worst American air disaster in two decades, the understaffed and cash-strapped National Transportation Safety Board was scrambling to keep investigators from leaving after federal employees received an offer by the Trump administration to resign and be paid through September.
A plane crash left no survivors and only a trail of grieving families and the stories of their loved ones.
President Donald Trump’s allies, including Vice President JD Vance, are making calls to shore up support for both Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard following their confirmation hearings this week, two sources familiar with the situation told CNN.
Over and over at a confirmation hearing on Wednesday, Democratic senators confronted Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about controversial comments they said he had made in the past. And over and over, President Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of health and human services either denied having said those things or said he wasn’t sure he had said them.
A few weeks before Donald Trump was sworn in as president, members of his transition team went to the Treasury Department to talk about the handover of power.
Elon Musk spent a total of more than $290 million on the 2024 election, new federal filings show, boosting President Donald Trump and Republicans in a staggering effort that has helped to secure unprecedented access for the world’s richest person in the new administration.
The Trump administration is preparing to revoke legal status for many migrants who entered the United States under a Biden-era program, according to a source familiar with the planning, expanding the pool of people who could be deported.
A regional jet departed Kansas and headed to one of the country’s most congested and complicated flight approaches, just south of the brightly illuminated marble monuments of Washington, DC. The journey ended as the deadliest US aviation disaster in nearly a quarter century.
Democrats will choose their next national party chair and leadership team Saturday, closing out a months-long debate over who is best suited to help the party rebrand and guide it through the next four years of the Trump administration.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrives in Panama Saturday for his first trip as the United States’ top diplomat that that will test if his diplomacy can build on President Donald Trump’s bellicose and transactional approach to “American First” foreign policy, particularly on migration.
President Donald Trump’s offer to most federal employees to resign now and be paid through September stunned the workers who received it — angering some, confusing many and raising questions about whether the offer is even legal.
Investigators are intensifying their search into what caused the collision between American Airlines Flight 5342 and an Army Black Hawk helicopter, with recovery crews still working to pull wreckage from the Potomac River and initial concerns already raised about the path of at least one of the aircraft.
On Friday afternoon, around the same time a delegation of senior Canadian officials was preparing to meet with President Donald’s Trump’s border czar in a bid to stave off withering new tariffs, Trump himself essentially told them from afar: Don’t bother.
Six Americans who had been detained in Venezuela are heading home to the US, President Donald Trump announced Friday, after his envoy met with the country’s President Nicolás Maduro.