Securing Panama: U.S. Inks Deal to End Chinese Hegemony at the Canal
Trump scores a huge Panama Canal win: countering China, re-establishing a military presence in Panama, plus toll-free priority passage for the U.S. Navy.
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by Rod D. Martin
April 11, 2025
It was decades overdue.
This week, while the world was focused on trade, the United States and Panama signed a new bilateral security agreement to defend one of the most strategically vital choke points in the Western Hemisphere: the Panama Canal.
It’s just setbacks on every front for the Chinese Communist Party. That’s not coincidental.
The memorandum, announced during Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s visit to Panama, largely resolves the issues enunciated by President Trump after his election. In short, America has “taken back the canal”…from China. We’ve also re-established a military presence, obtained toll-free priority passage for the U.S. Navy, and laid the groundwork to boot the CCP from control of Panama’s ports, whether China agrees to it or not. It’s almost everything Trump set out to achieve.
Oh, you thought Trump meant we were “taking the canal back” from Panama? Panama probably thought that too, which is why they quickly complied with U.S. demands they’d ignored for decades. Donald Trump is always negotiating. He starts high to throw his opponent off balance and get to a successful outcome. Again and again, that outcome is one his predecessors could never achieve, but also one that benefits all involved (take note, Greenland. And NATO).
The Canal isn’t just a relic of some bygone past. It remains a linchpin of global trade and military mobility. An incredible 72% of all ships using the Canal are either coming from or heading to American ports; 40% of all U.S. container traffic flows through it. The Canal cuts crucial weeks off transit times for U.S. forces, which would otherwise have to travel around South America. Losing the Canal would cripple the U.S.
The uninterrupted operation of the Canal is a matter of both economic and national security. It’s also about confronting the systematic infiltration of Chinese power into the Western Hemisphere — and removing the Trojan Horses we allowed to be wheeled through our gates.
The new agreement implements and expands the understanding reached in Februrary by Secretary of State Marco Rubio with Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino. It includes joint training exercises, enhanced defense cooperation, and — crucially — a return of U.S. military presence in Panama, including rotational access to key former U.S. facilities such as Howard Air Force Base and Rodman Naval Station. It also grants American warships toll-free and priority passage through the Canal, one of Trump’s foremost goals.
All this comes at the same moment as a Panamanian audit of the lease agreements that established CCP control over the Canal. Boring language, vital purpose: Xi Jinping just nixed the deal for an American consortium to buy out the Chinese interest. The audit provides the tools to break China’s lease entirely if Beijing won’t play ball.