China's presence around the Panama Canal is a national security concern that Panama's government has to deal with, Mauricio Claver-Carone, the U.S. special envoy for Latin America, said on Friday, ahead of
China's presence around the Panama Canal is a national security concern that Panama's government has to deal with, Mauricio Claver-Carone, the U.S. special envoy for Latin America, said on Friday, ahead of U.S. top diplomat Marco Rubio's visit to the country.
Rubio will depart on Saturday on his first foreign trip, with a scheduled visit to the canal and a meeting with Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino, the first talks between the countries since President Donald Trump's threat to take control of the U.S.-built canal.
Rubio will also visit El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic, where the Trump administration's efforts to repatriate migrants from the region and stem migration into the U.S. will be on the agenda, Claver-Carone said in a briefing call with reporters.
Claver-Carone said it was not Mulino's fault that China's presence around the canal "got completely out of hand" under previous Panamanian governments, but added that the Panamanian president now "has to deal with it."
"This increasingly creeping presence of Chinese companies and actors throughout the Canal Zone, in everything from ports and logistics to telecommunications infrastructure and otherwise, which is very concerning, not only frankly to the national security of the United
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