Panama's president denies making a deal that US warships can transit canal for free
abcnews.go.comPanama President José Raúl Mulino has rejected the U.S. State Department’s claim that his country had reached a deal allowing U.S. warships to transit the Panama Canal for free
PANAMA CITY — Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino on Thursday denied the U.S. State Department’s claim that his country had reached a deal allowing U.S. warships to transit the Panama Canal for free.
Mulino said he had told U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on Wednesday that he could neither set the fees to transit the canal nor exempt anyone from them and that he was surprised by the U.S. State Department’s statement suggesting otherwise late Wednesday.
“I completely reject that statement yesterday,” Mulino said during his weekly press conference, adding that he had asked Panama’s ambassador in Washington to dispute the State Department’s statement. He was scheduled to speak with U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday.
On Wednesday evening, the U.S. State Department said via X that “U.S. government vessels can now transit the Panama Canal without charge fees, saving the U.S. government millions of dollars a year.”
The Panama Canal Authority put out its own terse statement later Wednesday night saying it had «not made any adjustments” to the fees.
Mulino said the U.S. statement “really surprises me because they’re making an important, institutional statement from the entity that governs United States foreign policy under the president of the United States based on a falsity. And that’s intolerable.”
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who met with Mulino and canal administrators and visited the critical trade route earlier this week, said on Thursday from the Dominican Republic that he had no confusion about his discussions with Panama,
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