Panama's President Jose Raul Mulino speaks during the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos on January 22, 2025. (Photo by Fabrice Coffrini / AFP)
Davos, Switzerland: The Panama Canal was not a gift from the United States, President Jose Raul Mulino said Wednesday, after US President Donald Trump threatened to take it back.
"We reject in its entirety everything that Mr Trump has said. First because it is false and second because the Panama Canal belongs to Panama and will continue to belong to Panama," Mulino said during a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
"The Panama Canal was not a concession or a gift from the United States."
Trump, in his inaugural address Monday, repeated his accusation that China was "operating" the Panama Canal through its growing presence around the waterway.
"We didn't give it to China, we gave it to Panama. And we're taking it back," Trump said.
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.
Panama has complained to the United Nations over Trump's remarks, referring to an article of the UN Charter precluding any member from "the threat or use of force" against the territorial integrity or political independence of another.
China also said Wednesday that it had "never interfered in the affairs of the canal".
Mulino was defiant, saying he was "not worried" and Panama would not be "distracted by this type of statement".
"One cannot skip over public international law to impose criteria," he said.
"But it also leads us to think that from this -- let's call it the crisis -- there must also be opportunities to work on other issues that interest us with the United States."
This could include security issues as well as migration, since Panama faces its own challenges on the border with Colombia, he said.
