Summary

Donald Trump criticized Panama Canal fees as “ridiculous” and demanded lower costs or the canal’s return to the US.

In a Truth Social post, Trump also expressed concern about potential Chinese influence over the waterway, despite no direct Chinese control of canal operations.

The canal, transferred to Panama in 1999, is vital for global trade, handling 5% of maritime traffic.

Trump’s comments follow record revenues of $5 billion announced by the Panama Canal Authority. Panama has not yet responded to his statements.

  • acargitz@lemmy.ca
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    4 minutes ago

    At this point, I’m on board with a global trade war against the US. Build your stupid wall, surround yourselves with it and rot in the Maga stew you voted for. Come back out to talk to us when you’re ready.

      • VindictiveJudge@lemmy.world
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        6 minutes ago

        Lots of things about our elections were designed with the assumption that it would take ages for people to get anywhere, hence the delay. Not really relevant anymore, though.

  • NocturnalEngineer@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    The next 4 years are gonna be a blast. Thanks America!

    The trauma of 2016-2020 was still raw, but you guys really love sequels!

  • ramble81@lemm.ee
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    3 hours ago

    I wonder who even brought up the Canal and why? You know there’s no way in hell he thought of that on his own.

  • HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com
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    2 hours ago

    Its funny because I was against giving it up since we built it but I sure as heck am against taking it back. That is not how stability works. It would be equivalent to crimea and far to close to the fucked up thing we have with israel in the world.

    • Saleh@feddit.org
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      44 minutes ago

      If you build something in a foreign country under the threat of military invasion it is indefensible to claim “rightful ownership” because you built it.

      • HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com
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        32 minutes ago

        thats not really how it happened. It was financed and france had initiated it and then america purchased the project and completed it. It required a treaty and payments for land use.

        • Saleh@feddit.org
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          11 minutes ago

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Canal

          Great Britain attempted to develop a canal in 1843. According to the New-York Daily Tribune, 24 August 1843, Barings Bank of London and the Republic of New Granada entered into a contract for the construction of a canal across the Isthmus of Darien (Isthmus of Panama). They referred to it as the Atlantic and Pacific Canal, and it was a wholly British endeavor. Projected for completion in five years, the plan was never carried out. At nearly the same time, other ideas were floated, including a canal (and/or a railroad) across Mexico’s Isthmus of Tehuantepec. That did not develop, either.[9]

          In 1846, the Mallarino–Bidlack Treaty, negotiated between the US and New Granada, granted the United States transit rights and the right to intervene militarily in the isthmus. In 1848, the discovery of gold in California, on the West Coast of the United States, generated renewed interest in a canal crossing between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mallarino–Bidlack_Treaty

          Officially, it was entitled Tratado de Paz, Amistad, Navegación y Comercio (Treaty of Peace, Friendship, Commerce and Navigation), and was meant to represent an agreement of mutual cooperation. It granted the U.S. significant transit rights over the Panamanian isthmus, as well as military powers to suppress social conflicts and independence struggles targeted against Colombia. Under the Bidlack-Mallarino Treaty, the U.S. intervened militarily many times on the isthmus, usually against civilians, peasant guerrillas, or Liberal Party independence struggles. After the beginning of the California Gold Rush of 1848, the U.S. spent seven years constructing a trans-isthmian Panama Railway. The result of the treaty, however, was to give the United States a legal opening in politically and economically influencing the Panama isthmus, which was part of New Granada at the time, but was later to become the independent country of Panama in accordance with the wishes of the United States. In 1903, however, the United States failed to gain access to a strip on the isthmus for the construction of a canal, and reversed its position on Panamanian secession from the Republic of Colombia.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama–United_States_relations

          The evolution of the relation between Panama and the USA has followed the pattern of a Panamanian project for the recovering of the territory of the Canal of Panama, a project which became public after the events of May 21, 1958, November 3, 1959, and then on January 9, 1964. The latter day is known in Panama as the Martyrs’ Day (Panama), in which a riot over the right to raise the Panamanian flag in an American school became the vicinity of the Panama Canal.

          The following years saw a lengthy negotiation process with the United States, culminating with the Torrijos–Carter Treaties, in which the transfer of the Panama Canal to Panama was set to be completed in December, 1999. The process of transition, however, was made difficult by the existence of the de facto military rule of Manuel Noriega in Panama from 1982 to 1989.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Panama

          The United States invaded Panama in mid-December 1989 during the presidency of George H. W. Bush. The stated purpose of the invasion was to depose the de facto ruler of Panama, General Manuel Noriega, who was wanted by U.S. authorities for racketeering and drug trafficking. The operation, codenamed Operation Just Cause, concluded in late January 1990 with the surrender of Noriega.[9] The Panama Defense Forces (PDF) were dissolved, and President-elect Guillermo Endara was sworn into office.

          Noriega, who had longstanding ties to United States intelligence agencies, consolidated power to become Panama’s de facto dictator in the early 1980s. In the mid-1980s, relations between Noriega and the U.S. began to deteriorate due to fallout of the murder of Hugo Spadafora and the removal from office of President Nicolas Ardito Barletta. His criminal activities and association with other spy agencies came to light, and in 1988 he was indicted by federal grand juries on several drug-related charges. Negotiations seeking his resignation, which began under the presidency of Ronald Reagan, were ultimately unsuccessful. In 1989, Noriega annulled the results of the Panamanian general elections, which appeared to have been won by opposition candidate Guillermo Endara; President Bush responded by reinforcing the U.S. garrison in the Canal Zone. After a U.S. Marine officer was shot dead at a PDF roadblock, Bush authorized the execution of the Panama invasion plan.

          The history of Panama and the US in general and the Canal in particular is riddled with the US meddling violently in the affairs of Panama and suppressing its people on the behalf of US aligned dictators.

  • x00z@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    It’s like when a friend gifts you a lottery ticket and you win the lottery so now the friend wants it.

  • Xenny@lemmy.world
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    1 hour ago

    Hey now let’s not fuck with global trade routes like that now. We are already making other countries uneasy this would make them furious.

  • BoofStroke@sh.itjust.works
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    5 hours ago

    Trump is that old lady in a backed up check out line arguing with the cashier over her expired coupon. And paying with a check.

    • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      And waving around a nuclear arsenal and the most powerful military in the history of the world.

      • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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        3 hours ago

        Congress specifically exempted him and only him from direct access to the various superweapons (nuclear, chemical, and viral) that the US has in stockpile, during his last term. That still applies. He has to get permission from Congress and/or the Joint Chiefs to use them

  • whyNotSquirrel@sh.itjust.works
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    6 hours ago

    The UK criticized US presidents mental health as ridiculous and demanded to increase the IQ requirements or the USA return to the UK

    • Gammelfisch@lemmy.world
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      1 hour ago

      Even with the shit BREXIT and fucking Nigel, I would be OK with the the Red Coats running the circus.

    • mPony@lemmy.world
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      4 hours ago

      Head Of Lettuce demands to be un-wilted and returned to its former position as UK Prime Minister

  • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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    2 hours ago

    Trump “demands” lots of things. Almost all of them are directly against the interests of the party he’s demanding them from.

    He’s a bully who thinks he deserves to get his way all the time in all things. And he’s a crybaby when he doesn’t get what he wants.

    And he’s enough of an idiot to come up with a lot of ridiculous things to try and demand.

    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      5 hours ago

      When he’s the President of the United States, yes we will. Unfortunately.

      We were so fucking close to never having to hear about this piece of shit ever again.

      • fxomt@lemm.ee
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        5 hours ago

        Not all of us are American, I for one would love to block all news from the US; It’s extra salt in the wound that this was posted on WORLD news.

          • fxomt@lemm.ee
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            3 hours ago

            It’s about trump threatening panama, is that not US politics to you?

            The main focus here is clearly the US, panama is just the subject.

            • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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              2 hours ago

              When one country’s (soon to be) leader directly threatens another country, this is by definition “international”.

              I agree that Trump is getting far more attention that a person like him deserves, but him being the next head of a major nation makes him impossible to completely ignore.

              • fxomt@lemm.ee
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                2 hours ago

                Yup, as i said in another comment, i’ve changed my mind. I just really am annoyed of hearing of trump all the time, and made this comment.

              • fxomt@lemm.ee
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                3 hours ago

                What would US politics be, then?

                This is about the US, and its diplomacy with panama. It is not, by definition, international politics. The US and trump, as i said, are clearly the focus in this article. If it was vice versa, ie, X country interacting with the US, for example, it would be passable. This is US internal politics.

                Why couldn’t have this been posted to a US news community? why this of all places?

                • njm1314@lemmy.world
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                  3 hours ago

                  Yes by definition the diplomacy between two Nations is International politics. If it was internal us politics then it would be United States politics. I’m not sure what’s complicated about this, it’s common sense.

                  Of course it could also be posted to a US News community. It could also be posted to a Panama news Community I suppose. Sometimes posts are appropriate more than one community.

                • EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                  3 hours ago

                  By your own logic, that wouldn’t be international news - it would be x country news and shouldn’t be posted here either. Why would it be “passable” if the news was about another country doing it?

                  When Trump starts threatening to glass the EU with ICBMs, would that be US news only and not international? After all, it would be about the US and its arsenal of nuclear weapons.

        • hungryphrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          3 hours ago

          This one may not be that important, but I would like to remind you that unfortunately the bullshit 'murica does does affect the rest of us.

          • fxomt@lemm.ee
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            3 hours ago

            Yep, i agree. It’s just really tiring to see US news most of the time. This was probably a knee jerk reaction from me. Sorry.

      • adarza@lemmy.ca
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        5 hours ago

        and another 50 cleaning up the huuuge shit pile left behind.

        and that’s an optimistic estimate, requiring voters to choose planet and (all) people over party and self from here on.

          • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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            2 hours ago

            The shit that he broke last time still hasn’t been fixed yet.

            It takes a lot more time, effort, and money to build or repair than it doesn’t to break stuff.

            Even if Trump Vance and Musk all die in a plane crash, the rest of the MAGA-GOP would still be there being insane, and Project 2025 would still be grinding along puppetering whoever the next republican leader is.

        • seejur@lemmy.world
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          5 hours ago

          You forget Musk-fuelled presidencies that set us back even more while we try to repair the damages, because morons keep voting R no matter what