Summary

Donald Trump criticized Panama Canal fees as “ridiculous” and demanded lower costs or the canal’s return to the US.

In a Truth Social post, Trump also expressed concern about potential Chinese influence over the waterway, despite no direct Chinese control of canal operations.

The canal, transferred to Panama in 1999, is vital for global trade, handling 5% of maritime traffic.

Trump’s comments follow record revenues of $5 billion announced by the Panama Canal Authority. Panama has not yet responded to his statements.

    • AA5B@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      Why is my government, not even in office yet, so offensive that I usually support “the enemy”? Even the fact that so many normal countries and institutions are “the enemy” is so effing ridiculous.

      Next thing you know, we’re picking a fight with World Health Organization, because apparently sick and dying kids are “the enemy”

    • kreskin@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      If its any small consolation, the evil, lies, and idiocy built into our system are finally causing us to turn the violence inward toward the system itself, and increasingly toward Americans. History shows that its the nature of this sort of corrupt governance always turns inward on itself eventually. It just takes far, far too long, and there is no restorative justice at the end. And the cycle continues without learnings from our history.

      I wish american citizens could give you something better than that, but we honestly don’t know how. From one human being to another, I’m sorry, and what happened to your people should not have happened.

    • douglasg14b@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      As are we… As are we.

      Our own government is so deeply corrupted with corporate interests, hate, and fascism it feels hopeless.

      I can only hope that this government tries to make too many bad decisions and America gets the backlash it deserves.

    • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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      5 days ago

      It’s not that there’s someone intentionally deciding when and what Mr Trump should say that is the most insulting and offensive thing possible from one minute to the next … but that’s impossible to prove with the evidence at-hand.

  • acargitz@lemmy.ca
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    5 days ago

    At this point, I’m on board with a global trade war against the US. Build your stupid wall, surround yourselves with it and rot in the Maga stew you voted for. Come back out to talk to us when you’re ready.

  • HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com
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    5 days ago

    Its funny because I was against giving it up since we built it but I sure as heck am against taking it back. That is not how stability works. It would be equivalent to crimea and far to close to the fucked up thing we have with israel in the world.

    • Saleh@feddit.org
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      5 days ago

      If you build something in a foreign country under the threat of military invasion it is indefensible to claim “rightful ownership” because you built it.

      • HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com
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        5 days ago

        thats not really how it happened. It was financed and france had initiated it and then america purchased the project and completed it. It required a treaty and payments for land use.

        • Saleh@feddit.org
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          5 days ago

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Canal

          Great Britain attempted to develop a canal in 1843. According to the New-York Daily Tribune, 24 August 1843, Barings Bank of London and the Republic of New Granada entered into a contract for the construction of a canal across the Isthmus of Darien (Isthmus of Panama). They referred to it as the Atlantic and Pacific Canal, and it was a wholly British endeavor. Projected for completion in five years, the plan was never carried out. At nearly the same time, other ideas were floated, including a canal (and/or a railroad) across Mexico’s Isthmus of Tehuantepec. That did not develop, either.[9]

          In 1846, the Mallarino–Bidlack Treaty, negotiated between the US and New Granada, granted the United States transit rights and the right to intervene militarily in the isthmus. In 1848, the discovery of gold in California, on the West Coast of the United States, generated renewed interest in a canal crossing between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mallarino–Bidlack_Treaty

          Officially, it was entitled Tratado de Paz, Amistad, Navegación y Comercio (Treaty of Peace, Friendship, Commerce and Navigation), and was meant to represent an agreement of mutual cooperation. It granted the U.S. significant transit rights over the Panamanian isthmus, as well as military powers to suppress social conflicts and independence struggles targeted against Colombia. Under the Bidlack-Mallarino Treaty, the U.S. intervened militarily many times on the isthmus, usually against civilians, peasant guerrillas, or Liberal Party independence struggles. After the beginning of the California Gold Rush of 1848, the U.S. spent seven years constructing a trans-isthmian Panama Railway. The result of the treaty, however, was to give the United States a legal opening in politically and economically influencing the Panama isthmus, which was part of New Granada at the time, but was later to become the independent country of Panama in accordance with the wishes of the United States. In 1903, however, the United States failed to gain access to a strip on the isthmus for the construction of a canal, and reversed its position on Panamanian secession from the Republic of Colombia.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama–United_States_relations

          The evolution of the relation between Panama and the USA has followed the pattern of a Panamanian project for the recovering of the territory of the Canal of Panama, a project which became public after the events of May 21, 1958, November 3, 1959, and then on January 9, 1964. The latter day is known in Panama as the Martyrs’ Day (Panama), in which a riot over the right to raise the Panamanian flag in an American school became the vicinity of the Panama Canal.

          The following years saw a lengthy negotiation process with the United States, culminating with the Torrijos–Carter Treaties, in which the transfer of the Panama Canal to Panama was set to be completed in December, 1999. The process of transition, however, was made difficult by the existence of the de facto military rule of Manuel Noriega in Panama from 1982 to 1989.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Panama

          The United States invaded Panama in mid-December 1989 during the presidency of George H. W. Bush. The stated purpose of the invasion was to depose the de facto ruler of Panama, General Manuel Noriega, who was wanted by U.S. authorities for racketeering and drug trafficking. The operation, codenamed Operation Just Cause, concluded in late January 1990 with the surrender of Noriega.[9] The Panama Defense Forces (PDF) were dissolved, and President-elect Guillermo Endara was sworn into office.

          Noriega, who had longstanding ties to United States intelligence agencies, consolidated power to become Panama’s de facto dictator in the early 1980s. In the mid-1980s, relations between Noriega and the U.S. began to deteriorate due to fallout of the murder of Hugo Spadafora and the removal from office of President Nicolas Ardito Barletta. His criminal activities and association with other spy agencies came to light, and in 1988 he was indicted by federal grand juries on several drug-related charges. Negotiations seeking his resignation, which began under the presidency of Ronald Reagan, were ultimately unsuccessful. In 1989, Noriega annulled the results of the Panamanian general elections, which appeared to have been won by opposition candidate Guillermo Endara; President Bush responded by reinforcing the U.S. garrison in the Canal Zone. After a U.S. Marine officer was shot dead at a PDF roadblock, Bush authorized the execution of the Panama invasion plan.

          The history of Panama and the US in general and the Canal in particular is riddled with the US meddling violently in the affairs of Panama and suppressing its people on the behalf of US aligned dictators.

  • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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    5 days ago

    Trump “demands” lots of things. Almost all of them are directly against the interests of the party he’s demanding them from.

    He’s a bully who thinks he deserves to get his way all the time in all things. And he’s a crybaby when he doesn’t get what he wants.

    And he’s enough of an idiot to come up with a lot of ridiculous things to try and demand.

  • NocturnalEngineer@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    The next 4 years are gonna be a blast. Thanks America!

    The trauma of 2016-2020 was still raw, but you guys really love sequels!

    • Luci@lemmy.ca
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      5 days ago

      4 years eh? Didn’t he already signal that he wanted to kill the term limit??

          • douglasg14b@lemmy.world
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            5 days ago

            Exactly it’s just a piece of paper if it’s not actually enforced it means nothing.

            Just like all the laws and regulations that are regularly broken and ignored by the rich and have no enforcement.

            The law doesn’t mean anything anymore if you have enough money and power. And when the law and justice system fail the citizenry it’s the citizens job to take the law into their own hands.

      • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        Get armed, take a safety class, and be ready with your weapons and first aid supplies. Get some wound vacs and learn how to use them, you could save someone’s life.

        If you really want to help fix it, join or start a local mutual aid group. This is where I stall out. I work and travel so much I need my days off to make my back not hurt so much and reset my brain.

  • x00z@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    It’s like when a friend gifts you a lottery ticket and you win the lottery so now the friend wants it.

      • kreskin@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        The only thing getting trump in office sooner would get us is ending the “american experiment” sooner. I’m not looking forward to that. Its evidently time for republican traitors to push us off the cliff we have collectively pushed so many other peoples off of. Not used to the idea that we have real consequential pain coming.

        • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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          5 days ago

          This specific problem, probably not, but in general the 2 month lame duck session is a problem. It creates a period of no accountability for the president giving up their power, and the window makes doing things internationally more difficult as the incoming president may do things differently and cancel/change things.

          • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
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            4 days ago

            That’s one of the things about Trump that I think isn’t talked about enough. Now any agreements signed by the US seem like a crapshoot because the next guy in is just going to pull out or cancel them. Trump will do it for a second time to the Paris climate agreement. What about a peace treaty? Or a mutual defense pact? Why should another county trust us?

      • LordCrom@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        In the late 1700s it took months to get election results. Things that seemed normal hundreds of years ago…such as allowing bearing of arms in the form of a musket that maybe shot 1 bullet every 3 minutes… Today they are crazy…same rule applies to a machine gun that can spray hundreds of bullets in same time frame. The founding fathers had no idea what was to come.

        • Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          4 days ago

          such as allowing bearing of arms in the form of a musket that maybe shot 1 bullet every 3 minutes… Today they are crazy…same rule applies to a machine gun that can spray hundreds of bullets in same time frame.

          I get where you’re coming from but in regards to the above, this isn’t remotely true.

          Old powder fired guns made before a certain date (I think it’s like 1850?) can be owned by anyone, even felons.

          Modern firearms require a background check and other requirements to be purchased from a legit store.

          Short barrel rifles and suppressors require additional ATF checks, forms and taxes.

          Machineguns have even more regulations on top of all that.

        • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
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          4 days ago

          They also saw the constitution as a living document that should change with the times. The bill of rights was already in the pipeline when it was signed. There have been barely any changes since due to the impossibility of getting 3/4 of states to agree on if water is wet, let alone something important.

      • VindictiveJudge@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        Lots of things about our elections were designed with the assumption that it would take ages for people to get anywhere, hence the delay. Not really relevant anymore, though.

        • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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          5 days ago

          In the future, the US will finally make a constitutional amendment that fixes this, and a decade later we’ll develop human teleportation, but it’ll be another 100 years before they get to updating the constitution again.

          • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
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            4 days ago

            The constitution requires 3/4 of states to agree to an amendment. This kinda made sense when it was written. Now, unless something changes drastically, I can’t see the constitution amended ever again.

  • ramble81@lemm.ee
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    5 days ago

    I wonder who even brought up the Canal and why? You know there’s no way in hell he thought of that on his own.

  • Coach@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    Old man shouts at clouds. German media organization reports on it and further sane washes idiot’s moronic ramblings.

    Details at 11:00.