US troops will be able to deploy to a string of bases along the Panama Canal under a joint deal seen by AFP on Thursday (Apr 10), a major concession to President Donald Trump as he seeks to reestablish influence over the vital waterway.
The agreement, signed by top security officials from both countries, allows US military personnel to deploy to Panama-controlled facilities for training, exercises and “other activities”.
The deal stops short of allowing the United States to build its own permanent bases on the isthmus, a move that would be deeply unpopular with Panamanians and legally fraught.
But it gives the US broad sway to deploy an unspecified number of personnel to bases, some of which Washington built when it occupied the canal zone decades ago.
Trump, since returning to power in January, has repeatedly claimed that China has too much influence over the canal, which handles about 40 per cent of US container traffic and 5 per cent of world trade.
His administration has vowed to “take back” control of the strategic waterway that the US funded, built and controlled until 1999.
The US has long participated in military exercises in Panama.
However, a longer-term rotational force – such as the one the US maintains in Darwin, Australia – could prove politically toxic for Panama’s center-right leader Jose Raul Mulino.
“COUNTRY ON FIRE”
Mulino was on Thursday in Peru, where he revealed that the US had asked to have its own bases.
Mulino said he had told visiting Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth that US bases, allowed under an earlier draft, would be “unacceptable”.
He warned Hegseth: “Do you want to create a mess, what we’ve put in place here would set the country on fire.”
In the watered-down “Memorandum of Understanding”, signed by Hegseth and Panama’s security chief Frank Abrego on Wednesday, Panama won its own concessions.
The US recognised Panama’s sovereignty – not a given following Trump’s refusal to rule out an invasion – and Panama will retain control over any installations.
Panama will also have to agree to any deployments.
But given Trump’s willingness to rip up or rewrite trade deals, treaties and agreements, that might offer little succor to worried Panamanians.
The country has a long and difficult relationship with the US.
They have close cultural and economic ties, despite the decades-long US occupation of the canal zone and US invasion 35 years ago to overthrow dictator Manuel Noriega.
That invasion killed more than 500 Panamanians and razed parts of the capital.
Source: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/world/panama-canal-deal-us-deploy-troops-trump-5058876
