PANAMA CITY (AP) — President Donald Trump’s insistence Monday that he wants the Panama Canal back under U.S. control fed nationalist sentiment and worry in Panama, home to the critical trade route and a country familiar with U.S. military intervention.
“American ships are being severely overcharged and not treated fairly in any way, shape or form, and that includes the United States Navy. And above all, China is operating the Panama Canal,” Trump said Monday.
Click to Gallery
Panama Canal Administrator Ricaurte Vásquez addresses President-elect Donald Trump's suggestion that the U.S. should retake control of the Panama Canal during an interview with Associated Press in his office Friday, Jan. 10, 2025, in Panama City, Panama. (AP Photo/Abraham Terán)
President Donald Trump signs an executive order on TikTok in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
FILE - Looking north from the lighthouse on the west wall is the Gatun middle locks of the Panama Canal in the final stages of construction on June 25, 1913. (AP Photo, File)
FILE - A cargo ship sails through the Miraflores locks of the Panama Canal, in Panama City, on Sept. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix, File)
FILE - President Jimmy Carter applauds and General Omar Torrijos waves after the signing and exchange of treaties in Panama City on June 16, 1978, giving control of the Panama Canal to Panama in 2000. At far right is Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carterís National Security Advisor. (AP Photo, File)
FILE - A cargo ship traverses the Agua Clara Locks of the Panama Canal in Colon, Panama, Sept. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix, File)
In the capital, some Panamanians saw Trump’s remarks as a way of applying pressure on Panama for something else he wants: better control of migration through the Darien Gap. Others recalled the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama with concern.
Panama President José Raúl Mulino responded forcefully, as he did after Trump’s initial statement last month that the U.S. should consider repossessing the canal, saying the canal belongs to his country of 4 million and will remain Panama’s territory.
Panama's U.N. Mission sent Mulino's statement to the U.N. Security Council. The statement rejected “in its entirety" Trump's comments on the canal and said: “There is no presence of any nation in the world that interferes with our administration.”
Luis Barrera, a 52-year-old cab driver, said Panama had fought hard to get the canal back and has expanded it since taking control.
“I really feel uncomfortable because it’s like when you’re big and you take a candy from a little kid,” Barrera said.
At a rally in Phoenix in December, Trump said he might try to get the canal back after it was “foolishly” ceded to Panama. He complained that shippers were overcharged and that China had taken control of the key shortcut between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
Earlier this month, Trump wouldn’t rule out using military force to take it back.
The United States built the canal in the early 1900s as it looked for ways to facilitate the transit of commercial and military vessels between its coasts. Washington relinquished control of the waterway to Panama on Dec. 31, 1999, under a treaty signed in 1977 by President Jimmy Carter.
The canal is a point of pride for Panamanians. On Dec. 31, they celebrated the 25th anniversary of the handover, and days later they commemorated the deaths of 21 Panamanians who died at the hands of the U.S. military decades earlier.
On Jan. 9, 1964, students protested in the then-U.S. controlled canal zone over not being allowed to fly Panama’s flag at a secondary school there. The protests expanded to general opposition to the U.S. presence in Panama and U.S. troops got involved. A group of protesters this year burned an effigy of Trump.
The canal’s administrator, Ricaurte Vásquez, said this month that China is not in control of the canal and that all nations are treated equally under a neutrality treaty.
He said Chinese companies operating in the ports on either end of the canal were part of a Hong Kong consortium that won a bidding process in 1997. He added that U.S. and Taiwanese companies operate other ports along the canal as well.
Omayra Avendaño, who works in real estate, said Trump’s threat should be taken seriously.
“We should be worried,” she said. “We don’t have an army and he’s said he would use force.”
On Dec. 20, 1989, the U.S. military invaded Panama to remove dictator Manuel Noriega. Some 27,000 troops were tasked by then-President George H.W. Bush with capturing Noriega, protecting the lives of Americans living in Panama and restoring democracy to the country that a decade later would take over control of the Panama Canal.
Avendaño said she was 11 years old the last time the U.S. invaded her country and hoped Panama’s current government would seek international support to head off Trump’s designs on the canal.
“I remember the disaster that it was,” she said.
Panama Canal Administrator Ricaurte Vásquez addresses President-elect Donald Trump's suggestion that the U.S. should retake control of the Panama Canal during an interview with Associated Press in his office Friday, Jan. 10, 2025, in Panama City, Panama. (AP Photo/Abraham Terán)
President Donald Trump signs an executive order on TikTok in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
FILE - Looking north from the lighthouse on the west wall is the Gatun middle locks of the Panama Canal in the final stages of construction on June 25, 1913. (AP Photo, File)
FILE - A cargo ship sails through the Miraflores locks of the Panama Canal, in Panama City, on Sept. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix, File)
FILE - President Jimmy Carter applauds and General Omar Torrijos waves after the signing and exchange of treaties in Panama City on June 16, 1978, giving control of the Panama Canal to Panama in 2000. At far right is Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carterís National Security Advisor. (AP Photo, File)
FILE - A cargo ship traverses the Agua Clara Locks of the Panama Canal in Colon, Panama, Sept. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix, File)
MUGHRAQA, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli forces began withdrawing from a key Gaza corridor on Sunday, Israeli officials said, part of Israel's commitments under a tenuous ceasefire deal with Hamas that is moving ahead but faces a major test over whether the sides can negotiate its planned extension.
Israel agreed as part of the truce to remove its forces from the 4-mile (6-kilometer) Netzarim corridor, a strip of land that bisects northern Gaza from the south that Israel used as a military zone during the war.
At the start of the ceasefire last month, Israel began allowing Palestinians to cross Netzarim to head to their homes in the war-battered north, sending hundreds of thousands streaming across Gaza on foot and by car. The withdrawal of forces from the area will fulfill another commitment to the deal, which paused the 15-month war.
However, the sides appear to have made little progress on negotiating the deal's second phase, which is meant to extend the truce and lead to the release of more Israeli hostages held by Hamas.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was sending a delegation to Qatar, a key mediator in talks between the sides, but the mission included low-level officials, sparking speculation that it won’t lead to a breakthrough in extending the truce. Netanyahu is also expected to convene a meeting of key Cabinet ministers this week on the second phase of the deal.
Separately on Sunday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said that a 23-year-old Palestinian woman who was eight months pregnant was fatally shot by Israeli gunfire in the northern occupied West Bank, where Israeli troops have been carrying out a broad operation.
Since it began on Jan. 19, the ceasefire deal has faced repeated obstacles and disagreements between the sides, underscoring its fragility. But it has held, raising hopes that the devastating war that led to seismic shifts in the Middle East may be headed toward an end.
On Sunday, cars heaped with belongings, including water tanks and suitcases, were seen heading north through a road that crosses Netzarim. Under the deal, Israel is supposed to allow the cars to cross through uninspected, and there did not appear to be troops in the vicinity of the road.
Hamas spokesperson Abdel Latif Al-Qanoua said the withdrawal showed Hamas had “forced the enemy to submit to our demands" and that it thwarted “Netanyahu’s illusion of achieving total victory.”
The Israeli officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss troop movement with the media, did not disclose how many soldiers were withdrawing. Troops currently remain along Gaza's borders with Israel and Egypt and a full withdrawal is expected to be negotiated in a later stage of the truce.
During the first 42-day phase of the ceasefire, Hamas is gradually releasing 33 Israeli hostages captured during its Oct. 7, 2023, attack in exchange for a pause in fighting, freedom for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and a flood of humanitarian aid to war-battered Gaza. The deal also stipulates that Israeli troops will pull back from populated areas of Gaza as well as the Netzarim corridor.
In the second phase, all remaining living hostages would be released in return for a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a “sustainable calm.” But details beyond that are unclear and repeated stumbling blocks throughout the first phase and the deep mistrust between the sides have cast doubt on whether they can nail down the extension.
Israel has said it won’t agree to a complete withdrawal from Gaza until Hamas’ military and political capabilities are eliminated. Hamas says it won’t hand over the last hostages until Israel removes all troops from the territory.
Netanyahu meanwhile is under heavy pressure from his far-right political allies to resume the war after the first phase so that Hamas, which carried out the deadliest attack on Israelis in their history, can be defeated. He is also facing pressure from Israelis who are eager to see more hostages return home and want to deal to continue, especially after the gaunt appearances of the three male captives freed on Saturday stunned the nation.
Complicating things further is a proposal by U.S. President Donald Trump to relocate the population of Gaza and take ownership of the Palestinian territory. Israel has expressed openness to the idea while Hamas, the Palestinians and the broader Arab world have rejected it outright.
The suggested plan is saddled with moral, legal and practical obstacles. But it may have been proposed as a negotiation tactic by Trump, to try to ratchet up pressure on Hamas or as an opening gambit in a bargaining process aimed at securing a normalization deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia. That grand deal appeared to be rattled on Sunday as Saudi Arabia condemned remarks by Netanyahu who said Palestinians could create their state in that territory.
Saudi Arabia said his remarks “aim to divert attention from the successive crimes committed by the Israeli occupation against our Palestinian brothers in Gaza, including the ethnic cleansing they are being subjected to.”
In an interview Thursday with Israel’s Channel 14, Netanyahu said: “The Saudis can create a Palestinian state in Saudi Arabia; they have a lot of land over there.”
The war in Gaza, sparked by Hamas’ attack that killed 1,200 people and saw 250 taken hostage, has killed more than 47,000 Palestinians according to local health authorities who do not differentiate between fighters and noncombatants in their count. Vast parts of the territory have been obliterated in the fighting, leaving many Palestinians returning to damaged or destroyed homes.
Violence has surged in the West Bank throughout the war and has intensified in recent days with an Israeli military operation in the north of the territory. The shooting of the pregnant woman, Sundus Shalabi, happened in the Nur Shams urban refugee camp, a focal point of Israeli operations against Palestinian militants in the territory. The Palestinian Health Ministry also said that Shalabi’s husband was critically wounded by the gunfire.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz announced on Sunday the expansion of the Israeli military operation, which started in the city of Jenin several weeks ago. He said the operation was meant to prevent Iran from establishing a foothold in the occupied West Bank.
Goldenberg reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates contributed to this report.
Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
FILE - Israeli soldiers drive near the northern Gaza Strip border in southern Israel, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit, File)
FILE - Israeli soldiers wave to the camera from an APC as they cross from the Gaza Strip into Israel, Saturday, Jan. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov, File)
Palestinians are seen near destroyed buildings by Israeli bombardments inside the northern Gaza Strip as seen from southern Israel, Sunday, Feb. 9, 2025. (Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)