On Tuesday, protesters in Panama set fire to a picture of US President-elect Donald Trump after he threatened to demand that Washington regain control of the nation’s interoceanic canal.
Outside the US embassy, dozens of protesters lined up and chanted, “Trump, animal, leave the canal alone” and “Get out invading gringo,” while roughly 20 police officers stood watch over the compound.
A few people in the throng held banners that said, “Donald Trump, public enemy of Panama.”
“The (Panamanian) people have shown that they are capable of recovering their territory and we are not going to give it up again,” protester Jorge Guzman told AFP.
The canal, inaugurated in 1914, was built by the United States but handed to Panama on December 31, 1999, under treaties signed some two decades earlier by then-US president Jimmy Carter and Panamanian nationalist leader Omar Torrijos.
“Panama is a sovereign territory and the canal here is Panamanian,” said Saul Mendez, the leader of a construction union that jointly organized the protest.
“Donald Trump and his imperial delusion cannot claim even a single centimeter of land in Panama,” Mendez added.
Trump alluded to China’s expanding power on Saturday while criticizing what he described as unjust tariffs for US ships using the Panama Canal.
Should Panama fail to guarantee “the secure, efficient and reliable operation” of the channel, “then we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to us, in full, and without question,” he declared.
In a declaration signed Monday alongside past Central American leaders, President Jose Raul Mulino stated that the canal’s position is non-negotiable.
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