US President Donald Trump announced that he plans to take back control of the Panama Canal.
The waterway located in Panama connects the Caribbean Sea with the Pacific Ocean, reducing times for ships to cross between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
During his inauguration speech, Trump claimed that China has mismanaged the canal and declared that the US would be “taking it back”, as he also accussed China of unfairly benefiting from the important trade route.
The canal offers a number of security and economic advantages for the United States, who are according to college professor and shipping expert, Sal Mercogliano, are “the biggest single user of the canal, outshining everyone probably combined.”
The second country that uses the canal zone the most is China.
Trump said: “China is operating the Panama Canal, we didn’t give it to China, we gave it to Panama. And we’re taking it back.”
He also claimed that American ships were being overcharged to use the canal.
Last month demonstrators in Panama protested after Trump, who was President-elect at the time, made comments about Washington potentially taking back the Panama Canal.
Protesters gathered outside the US Embassy in Panama carrying banners that read “Donald Trump, public enemy of Panama” and “The Panama Canal is Not For Sale.”
Since 1999, Panama controlled the canal, following a treaty that was signed between the country and the US in 1977. The agreement ensured the canal’s neautrality and fair treatment for vessel from all nations.
However, the US president now sees China’s use of it as a national-security threat.
In the past three decades Chinese infrastructure has been built up in the surrounding area of the canal and there are more projects that are going on, including a canal bridge, new subway line and cruise-ship terminal.
Trump administration officials say it all amounts to a violation of the U.S-Panama treaties that required the canal to remain neutral when Washington turned over the American-built canal to Panama, The Wall Street Journal reports.
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said: “China will, as always, respect Panama’s sovereignty over the canal and recognise the canal as a permanetly neutral international waterway.”