When Marco Rubio arrives in Latin America this weekend on his first foreign trip as Donald Trump's secretary of state, he'll find a region reeling from the new administration's shock-and-awe approach to diplomacy.
Trump's new top maritime official Louis Sola tells CNBC 'all options on the table' to punish Panama and defend U.S. business, trade and national security.
President Donald Trump's suggestion of the U.S. taking control of the Panama Canal has a legal basis partly due to potential treaty violations involving Chinese activities in Panama.
Panama has owned and administered the Panama Canal for nearly three decades. President Trump wants to change that to counter growing Chinese influence in Latin America.
China's influence on the Panama Canal is a major risk to U.S. national security, Sen. Ted Cruz told lawmakers during a Senate hearing on Capitol Hill.
The Tuesday hearing delved into security issues and foreign influence on the foremost maritime channel connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
US senators heard sharply different analyses about Chinese influence over the Panama Canal on Wednesday, with some experts suggesting solutions ranging from enhanced trade partnerships to military intervention to regain control of the strategic waterway.
A bipartisan group of U.S. senators on Tuesday expressed alarm at China's influence on the Panama Canal, which President Donald Trump has vowed the United States would take back.
In recent weeks, when he was President-elect Donald Trump publicly said that Panama should return the Panama Canal to the United States, and he would not rule out using military force to reclaim it. At his presidential Inauguration on Monday Trump doubled down on saying that his new administration was going to take back the canal.
Trump has suggested using military force to retake the Panama Canal, but such an action would involve complications.
Trump is right to lament the lives lost for the creation of the canal. They were mostly Black Caribbean migrant workers, living and dying under Jim Crow conditions that the U.S. imposed in Panama.