A cargo ship sails through the Agua Clara Locks of the Panama Canal in Colon City, Panama, on December 28, 2024. (Photo by ARNULFO FRANCO / AFP)
Agua Clara, Panama: For dozens of US tourists watching a cargo ship pass along the Panama Canal, Donald Trump's threat to possibly wrest back control of the waterway is nonsensical.
"I think it is 100 percent Panama, yeah, and it should stay such," said one, Natalia Glusack, a 47-year-old accountant from California vacationing with her mother.
She was among around 50 Americans standing in a viewing area at a visitors' center to watch a 266-meter (870-foot) Danish-flagged freighter move along the canal.
None of those interviewed backed President-elect Trump in his repeated threats that he could seize control of the canal after he returns to the White House next month.
Trump has claimed that American ships are charged "unfair" fees for passing through the canal, and made unsubstantiated allegations that China controls it.
Panama's government has resolutely rejected Trump's accusations and his threat.
So too did all the US citizens asked at the canal viewing area, on the Atlantic Ocean entrance to the cross-continent channel.
"Donald Trump claims a lot of things, and that doesn't make them true," said Mindy Holland, a retiree from New York.
"He likes to bring up dramatic things and get people riled. But it belongs to Panama.... because that was part of the agreement" the two countries signed in 1977, said Paola Metzner, a 74-year-old retiree also from New York.
