“China is operating the Panama canal and we didn’t give it to China, we gave it to Panama, and we’re taking it back.”
Donald Trump’s declare in his inauguration speech that Panama had “broken its promises” to the US was alarming for a lot of Panamanians. Washington relinquished management of the canal in 1977, so why is Trump urgent the problem now?
“For many Panamanians, this is a settled understanding that they administrate the canal, that they’ve been running it for decades,” the Guardian’s international affairs correspondent, Andrew Roth, tells Hannah Moore.
“For Donald Trump to come out and make basically two claims – first of all, that the canal is mismanaged, and second of all, that China is running the canal – it’s almost like an insult to the national pride of many Panamanians.”
Andrew explains the political resonance of the problem for older voters within the US, the place the claims about Chinese language affect have come from, and why an outdated grudge involving considered one of Trump’s inns may additionally be a part of his motivation.
Help the Guardian at this time: theguardian.com/todayinfocuspod
