After Trump threats, Hong Kong firm to sell stake in Panama Canal ports
PANAMA CITY — A Hong Kong-based company announced Tuesday that it would sell its stake in two ports on the Panama Canal to a U.S.-led consortium, apparently responding to threats from President Donald Trump over what he called Chinese influence at the critical waterway.
CK Hutchison said the proposed sale was part of a bigger deal in which the consortium led by New York-based BlackRock Inc. would also acquire an 80% interest in its units that owned, operated and developed 43 other ports in 23 countries. The value of the entire deal is $22.8 billion, the companies said.
CK Hutchison had held 90% control of the Panama Ports Company, which owns and operates the ports of Balboa and Cristobal on either end of the canal. Companies from the United States, Taiwan and Singapore operate other ports at the canal.
Trump has threatened to take back the canal from Panama, which acquired full control in 1999 under a treaty with the United States. In his inaugural address, Trump said: “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.”
Trump’s threats alarmed Panama’s government and leaders throughout the hemisphere. The United States has a long history of invasions and interference in Latin American affairs, but most politicians believed direct military intervention was a thing of the past.
Panama’s president has insisted he had no intention of returning the canal to U.S. control. He has pointed out that China does not run the waterway; it is managed and operated by Panama.
In a sign of how significant the canal issue had become to the Trump administration, Secretary of State Marco Rubio made Panama his first stop after being confirmed last month. He told President José Raúl Mulino that the situation at the canal was “unacceptable” and that the United States would have to take action unless there were “immediate changes,” according to a State Department summary of the meeting,
A senior official of CK Hutchison, Frank Sixt, said in a statement that port deal was “the result of a rapid, discrete but competitive process.” He added that the transaction “is purely commercial in nature and wholly unrelated to recent political news reports concerning the Panama Ports.”
But analysts said it was almost certainly connected to Trump’s threats. In recent weeks, CK Hutchison has come under growing pressure, with Panama auditing its operations at the canal, and the country’s attorney general arguing that its concession to operate the ports was unconstitutional.
Rodrigo Noriega, a Panamanian lawyer and political analyst, said the move would likely ease tensions with the United States.
“It takes away [Donald Trump’s] excuse that the Chinese are dominating ports in the Panama Canal,” Noriega said. “The differences with the United States should disappear.”
He said he wasn’t sure the deal would put an end to Trump’s threats to “take back” the canal. But if the U.S. president persisted, he could now find himself in conflict with an American firm, BlackRock. “That would cost Trump a lot of support among Republicans,” he said.
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Sheridan reported from Mexico City.