President Donald Trump called for military and commercial ships from the United States to be able to travel through the Suez and Panama Canals without facing a fee, and added that he had directed Secretary of State Marco Rubio to take care of the issue.
“American Ships, both Military and Commercial, should be allowed to travel, free of charge, through the Panama and Suez Canals!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “Those Canals would not exist without the United States of America. I’ve asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio to immediately take care of, and memorialize, this situation!”
Trump’s post comes as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced earlier this month during a press conference in Panama that the U.S. and Panama would “sign a declaration providing a framework for U.S. warships and auxiliary ships to travel ‘first and free’ through the canal,” which the U.S. built “in the early 1900s” before it was handed over to Panama in the 1990s.
While the U.S. had built the canal in the early 1900s and maintained it for decades before handing it over to Panama in the 1990s, China had in recent years poured money into projects and infrastructure…
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