PANAMA CITY — Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is headed back to Washington as the triumphant bearer of good tidings for President Donald Trump: Panama and the United States will partner to protect the Panama Canal from maligned Chinese interests.
It was both a difficult and delicate task for Hegseth and the Defense officials who accompanied him to bilateral meetings at President José Raúl Mulino’s palace in Panama City. The Panama Canal is a point of national identify for many Panamanians, a senior defense official pointed out on Wednesday evening, and any sense or suspicion of infringement on their sovereignty is considered highly problematic.
The trip began on an energetic but cautiously optimistic note, as Defense Department officials flew down to Panama prepared to engage in serious dialogue but not entirely sure how the week would go. After all, President José Raúl Mulino had angrily attacked Trump when the U.S. president posted that he wanted to retake the Panama Canal and expressed concerns about China’s influence on the region.
Yet by the time Hegseth departed the country, the Secretary of Defense had signed both a memorandum of understanding on cooperative security activities and a joint declaration on the security and operation of the Panama Canal — a framework for US warships and auxiliary ships to sail “first and free” through the busiest waterway in the world.
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The expanded U.S. and Panama relationship will also focus on cyber cooperation, information sharing, bilateral security dialogs, and canal infrastructure, Hegseth said at a press conference in Panama City on Wednesday. The memorandum of understanding will also increase joint training exercises, operations, and “overall interoperability” between Panama and the U.S., including joint presence at Fort Sherman, where the Jungle School will be revived, and Rodman Naval Station and Howard Air Force Base.
The focus: helping Panama “deter and counter malign activity in the areas surrounding the canal.”
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