Panama City – Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino denied the assertion of the US State Department on Thursday that his country had concluded an agreement to allow us free of charge to pass the Panama Canal.
Mulino said he said the American defense secretary on Wednesday that he could neither set the expenses to transit the canal nor exempt anyone from them and that he was surprised by the Department of the United States Department suggesting the opposite Wednesday evening.
“I completely reject this declaration yesterday,” said Mulino at his weekly press conference, adding that he had asked the Panama ambassador to Washington to challenge the statement of the State Department.
Wednesday evening, the US State Department said in an article on social networks: “US government ships can now pass on the Panama Canal without charge costs, saving the US Dollars a year.” The department made no immediate comments Thursday on Mulino’s remarks.
Mark Schiefelbein / Pool / AFP / Getty
The Panama Canal Authority published its own laconic declaration later Wednesday evening by saying that it had “made no adjustment” to the fees, adding that it was “willing to establish a dialogue with the relevant officials of the United States in This concerns the transit of US Navy Ships.
Mulino said that the American Declaration “really surprises me because they make an important institutional declaration of the entity that governs foreign policy of the United States under the President of the United States according to a falsehood. And C ‘is intolerable “.
The different versions came only a few days after the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met Mulino And the administrators of the canal and visited the critical commercial route. He had brought a message from President Trump that China’s influence on the channel was unacceptable because the Trump administration is making a push for us channel controlwhat he said he needs America’s economic security.
The Panama canal serves as a shortcut between the peaceful ocean and the Atlantic Ocean. And although the United States has directed the construction of the big navigable track that around 40% of world cargo traffic moves now, its control was given to Panama in 1999.
During their meeting, Rubio told Panamanian chief that Mr. Trump had determined that China’s influence on the canal constituted “a threat to the channel and represents a violation of the treaty concerning permanent neutrality and the exploitation of the channel of Panama, “said a spokesperson in a statement.
Mulino refuted these allegations, and he said Thursday that the constitution and laws of the Panama regulating the authority of the canal clearly indicate that neither the government nor the authority can renounce the costs.
“It is a constitutional limitation,” he said.
