Hong Kong’s Hutchison Whampoa operates two ports on the waterway – the Port of Balboa on the Pacific side of the route while Cristobal operates on the Atlantic end.
Around 5% of global maritime trade passes through the 51-mile Panama Canal.
Last week, Marco Rubio, Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, told a senate confirmation hearing “the very legitimate concern is these companies control both ends of this canal and at a time of conflict and the Chinese tell them ‘shut it down and don’t let the US go through there’ we got a big, big problem. A big economic problem and a big national security and defence problem”.
In his speech, Trump said that he wanted to be a “peacemaker” but Michael McFaul, the former US ambassador to Russia under President Obama wrote on social media: “You can’t be a president of peace and take back the Panama Canal.”
As well as the Panama Canal, Trump has previously also said he wanted to acquire Greenland, the autonomous Danish territory. Denmark rejected any suggestion they would give it up.
Trump did not mention Greenland in his address but he set out his expansionist vision for the next four years.
“The United States will once again consider itself a growing nation, one that increases our wealth, expands our territory, builds our cities, raises our expectations and carries our flag into new and beautiful horizons,” he said.
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