‘This rip-off of our country will immediately stop. It’s gonna stop. The United States has a big and vested interest in the secure, efficient and reliable operation’
By Joe Kovacs
Will control of the Panama Canal return to the United States once President Donald Trump takes office?
The president-elect says yes if Panama does not stop “ripping off” America.
On Saturday night Trump went on Truth Social to make the case for the strategic waterway coming back into American hands from Panama, and then repeated his assertion to a live rally Sunday at the Americafest Conference in Phoenix, Arizona.
“The fees being charged by Panama are ridiculous, highly unfair especially knowing the extraordinary generosity that has been bestowed to Panama, I say very foolishly by the United States,” Trump said in Phoenix.
“This ripoff of our country will immediately stop. It’s gonna stop. The United States has a big and vested interest in the secure, efficient and reliable operation of the Panama Canal and that was always understood when they gave it to Panama. Can you believe that?
“We would never have done it if we thought what’s happening now can happen and we would never, and we will never ever let it fall into the wrong hands but it is falling into the wrong hands.