Santo Domingo:
The Secretary of State of the United States, Marco Rubio, said Thursday that it was “absurd” that the naval ships of the United States paid to travel the Panama Canal, after the president of Panama denied an agreement on the free passage .
“It seems absurd to have to pay rates to travel an area that we are obliged to protect in the time of conflict. Those are our expectations,” Rubio told the journalists of the Dominican Republic.
Rubio, however, stopped to insist that an agreement had been reached.
“They are a democratically chosen government. They have rules; they have laws. They will follow their process, but our expectations remain the same,” he said.
A publication on the social networks of the State Department said Wednesday that Panama would exempt the ships of the American government of the rates, days after a blond visit.
President José Raúl Mulino described the false and “intolerable” comment.
President Donald Trump has threatened to seize the Panama Canal, pointing out the growing influence of China.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a union feed).