The US senators review with experts the influence of China on the Panama Canal, although they recognize that the Central American country has efficiently handled infrastructure. This occurs just before the visit of the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, to Panama on his first trip abroad.
Experts summoned this Tuesday By the Commerce, Science and Transportation of the United States Senate, they stated that Panama has efficient The Chinese shadow It is increasingly imposed with ranges of influence on port operations.
Democratic and Republican legislators were convened by the president of the Committee, Senator Ted Cruz, who said that US companies suffer from “extortion” in rates, in a work that cost the USA 110 years ago what currently equals about 15,000 Millions of dollars.
He added that “it cannot be seen elsewhere” when the Central American country “is exploiting a strategic route” for commercial and national security interests for the power of the north, which returned sovereignty to Panama on the passage in 1999, after 20 years of transition.
Louis E. Sol Maritime Federal Commission (FMC), appointed in 2018 by President Donald Trump to occupy the chair in the agency for five years, was the first to testify and said that “the channel has been administered very competently by the authority of the Panama Canal, a government entity that is independent of the government ”, of that country.
But he warned that transparency measurements put Panama in au do business ”, with what sees the greater risk of China's influence.
The Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, begins this Friday his first tour as head of American diplomacy in Panama and other countries in Central America, so the attention of the visit is set on the open battle between Trump with Panama having secured in his inauguration that US must recover the channel That, according to him, the Central American country was “foolishly”.
For Professor Eugene Kontorovich, of the Law Faculty at the George Mason University in Virginia, and researcher at the Heritage Foundation Conservative Analysis Center in Washington, the Chinese issue on the channel must be seen from a rereading of the “Neutrality Treaty”.
“This raises the question of whether the operation of the channel or its facilities attached to a private, or American or Panamanian company, is consistent with the treaty,” he told the senators, and if the concessions of the entry and exit ports of the channel On the part of Panama to Chinese companies, they would violate the treaty, he questioned.
And it should also be deepened if the companies that operate the ports are private companies such as in the United States, or government companies because “in a communist regime, the distinctions between private and state companies are not as absolute or clear as in a western liberal society” , he warned
He added that “that is particularly the case of the People's Republic of China” that has an official doctrine known as 'Military-Civil Fusion', a high-level strategy of the central committee of the Communist Party, “he said in his testimony.
This expert said that the Chinese influence on the channel can have “a cumulative and combined effect”, if it is reviewed what specific areas of the port activity are “subordinated to a rival or even hostile power”, which fuses its civil and military sectors for Advance infrastructure development to “project global power.”
Water shortage and long -term viability
The current commissioner of the Federal Maritime Commission, Daniel B. Maffei, presented to the legislators another crucial point for maritime traffic between the two oceans, which has always had “limits in its capacity”, as it is a river bridge on mountain land that “It depends on large freshwater supplies to maintain its complete operations.”
A demonstration of this weakness was the drought that afflicted the region since 2023 that led to operate in minimal, and that the experts of the commission as well as the same Panamanian Port Authority predict that the volume of water will decrease in the coming years, which will force to reduce operations up to 40 % of the traffic Maritime by this route by 2050.
“In the last two years, a tendency to worsen droughts in the region forced to limit channel operations. As of June 2023, the Canal Authority applied draft restrictions preventing some larger or very loaded ships from going through the canal lock systems and reduced the number of ships allowed to travel per day, he explained.
Maffei told the Committee that from the FMC they have had “very frank conversations” with the Panamanian authorities, including the president of Panama, José Raúl Mulino, for then recently elected, to discuss maritime policy in the light of Washington's concerns.
“We had free conversations about key issues such as Panama's plans to improve water level challenges, the bidding process used to assign transits during restriction times and our concern that the channel authority was raising much more money for transit During the crisis of what he had raised before the water shortage of 2023-24, ”he said.
The commissioner, reiterated to the senators that the FMC “has statutory authority under the laws related to foreign maritime transport practices” with which it can investigate, and potentially take “adequate” measures if it is verified that a foreign country contributes to “conditions conditions unfavorable for maritime transport in foreign trade. ”
Given the questions of the senators, none of the guest witnesses gave a position signing if China has control over the channel, but they did clarify in the presence in the port activities granted under tender mechanisms for 25 years.
In Panama, lawyer Alonso Illueca told the Voice of America That this hearing put in greater perspective and preparation for the Panamanians before the visit of the Rubio Secretary, this Friday, because it defines from expanding the position of Washington before the interoceanic channel, as the legislators of both parties aligned in the Concern about the interests of the US for their safety.