Panama City – The president of Panamano, José Raúl Mulino, denied Thursday the statement of the United States Department of State that his country had reached an agreement that allowed US warships to travel the Panama channel for free.
Mulino said he had told us to the United States Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, on Wednesday that he could not establish the rates to travel to the channel or exempt anyone from them and that he was surprised by the statement of the State Department of the State of the States United, which suggested otherwise Wednesday night.
“I completely reject that statement yesterday,” Mulino said during his weekly press conference, adding that he had asked the Panama ambassador to Washington to dispute the state department statement.
On Wednesday night, the United States Department of State said through X that “the United States government ships can now travel the Panama Canal without charges, saving the United States government millions of millions of dollars a year. ” The department did not make immediate comments on Thursday about Mulino’s comments.
The different versions occurred a few days after the Secretary of State of the United States, Marco Rubio, met with the administrators of Mulino and the Canal and visit the Critical Commercial Route.
Rubio had He took a message of the president of the United States, Donald Trump, who China influence On the channel it was unacceptable.
Rubio had told Mulino that Trump believed that China’s presence in the channel area could violate a treaty that led the United States to pass the river to Panama in 1999. That treaty requires the permanent neutrality of the channel built by the United States .
The channel administrators said they were open to discuss the priority of US warships when crossing the channel, but did not say they had considered exemption rates.
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