The CEO of the Panama Canal Authority rejected the demands of President-elect Donald Trump, who escalated a conflict over the vital trade passage at a Mar-a-Lago press conference on Tuesday. Trump has repeatedly claimed that Panama charges American vessels “exorbitant prices” to travel through the waterway, and that China was controlling the canal. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, Panama Canal Authority CEO Ricaurte Vásquez Morales called Trump’s claims about China “unfounded” and said that both nations had to follow the same rules. “We cannot discriminate for the Chinese, or the Americans, or anyone else,” Vásquez Morales told the Journal. “This will violate the neutrality treaty, international law and it will lead to chaos.” Vásquez Morales also said that he was unclear where Trump was getting the claim that Panama requested $3 billion for repairs to the canal—as the Canal Authority funds its own repairs. The CEO is only the latest Panamanian official to push back against Trump’s demands. Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino previously rejected any notion that the US could take the canal back after Trump’s initial remarks in December, insisting that “every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjoining zone is Panama’s and will remain so.” Panama’s foreign minister, Javier Martinez-Acha, repeated the nation’s stance on Tuesday, telling The New York Times “let it be clear: The canal belongs to the Panamanians and it will continue to be that way.”
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