The US Congress has introduced legislation that would allow the USA to buy the Panama Canal, FreightWaves wrote.
The Republican-backed legislation would allow US President Donald Trump, who took office on 20 January, to start negotiations with Panama, the 10 January report said.
Introduced by US representative Dusty Johnson and referred to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the Panama Canal Repurchase Act 2025 would allow the president, in co-ordination with the secretary of state to “initiate and conduct negotiations with appropriate counterparts of the Government of the Republic of Panama to reacquire the Panama Canal”.
The legislation required the president to submit a report to Congress six months after it had been enacted “detailing the progress of the negotiations” along with “potential challenges and anticipated outcomes”, FreightWaves wrote.
Trump first raised the idea of repurchasing the waterway, which former US President Jimmy Carter signed over to Panama for economic and national security reasons in a 1977 treaty that took effect in 2000, the report said.
“President Trump is right to consider repurchasing the Panama Canal,” Johnson was quoted as saying in a press release announcing the legislation.
“China’s interest in, and presence around, the canal is a cause for concern. America must project strength abroad – owning and operating the Panama Canal might be an important step towards a stronger America and a more secure globe.”
Johnson’s office had warned of China’s growing influence in the Panama Canal region, pointing out that in 2018 Panama was the first country in Latin America to join China’s Belt and Road Initiative, and that Chinese-backed companies had managing rights for the two ports at each end of the canal, FreightWaves wrote.
“Without access to the Panama Canal, ocean shippers would be forced to travel 8,000 additional miles around South America. More than 10,000 ships use the Panama Canal each year, generating billions of dollars of tolls which would economically benefit America,” his office said.
According to US State Department data, 72% of all vessel transits through the canal are coming from, or destined for, US ports and it is also a key transit point for Coast Guard and Department of Defence vessels.
After Trump posted on his Truth Social platform about taking back the canal, Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino dismissed Trump’s claims of growing Chinese influence over the waterway and of higher fees being charged to US ships using it.
Trump has refused to rule out using military action to take over the canal, the report said.
Asked at a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on 7 March if he would rule out the use of military or economic coercion to get control of either the Panama Canal or Greenland, Trump was quoted as saying by Reuters, “I can’t assure you on either of those two. But I can say this: We need them for economic security.”
In response, Panama Foreign Minister Javier Martínez-Acha was quoted as saying by the BBC, “the only hands operating the canal are Panamanian, and that is how it is going to stay”.
