‘Total misperception’ Panama Canal under China’s influence, official says

Panama has to do ‘very, very good job’ in explaining to US administration that there is no foreign interference, vice-minister says

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The Panama Canal will remain neutral despite recent agreements to enhance security cooperation between Panama and the United States, a Panamanian official says. Photo: AFP

Published: 4:19pm, 13 Apr 2025Updated: 8:23pm, 13 Apr 2025

The notion that the Panama Canal is under China’s influence is a “total misperception”, a top official from the Central American nation has said, adding that his country must explain this to the new US administration.

Panama’s vice-minister of foreign affairs, Carlos Guevara Mann, also said his country’s decision to pull out of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative was “not entirely” due to pressure from Washington but rather because it had received “nothing” from its participation in the global trade strategy.

Mann, speaking at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum in Turkey on Saturday, also gave assurances that the canal would remain neutral despite recent agreements to enhance security cooperation between Panama and the United States.

Asked by the Post about the role US-China tensions had played in Panama’s decisions over the canal and the initiative, Mann said: “The perception of the US administration is that the canal has fallen under the influence of China, which is a total misperception, because no foreign country has any impact or any difference on the administration of the canal.”

Panama has found itself as a flashpoint in a geopolitical storm between China and the US, which intensified after Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing’s conglomerate CK Hutchison Holdings revealed plans on March 4 to sell the two ports it operates on either end of the canal as part of a US$23 billion deal with a consortium led by US asset manager BlackRock.

In the past month, Beijing has piled pressure on CK Hutchison to cancel the deal, signalling that it considers the sale of such strategic assets a threat to national security. The ports are also in Washington’s crosshairs, with US President Donald Trump previously threatening to seize the canal, claiming it was controlled by Beijing.