Panama channel is not up for discussion

//

Lerato Khumalo

Newsblog on US politics

Mulino: “The soul of a country is not up for discussion”

From dpa,, Reuters,, AFP,, T-online,, Fin,, AJ

Updated on January 30th, 2025 – 11:19 p.m.Reading time: 10 min.

Enlarge the picture

Panama’s President José Raúl Mulino makes a clear announcement to the Trump government (archive image). (Source: Imago/Arnulfo Franco/Imago)

Donald Trump has a simple explanation for the aircraft accident about Washington. Mark Zuckerberg encloses an argument with him. All developments in the news blog.

11 p.m.: Panama’s President José Raúl Mulino has excluded any negotiations with the United States about the Panama Canal. “Panama’s sovereignty over the channel is clear that there is no discussion about this topic. The soul of a country is not up for discussion,” said Mulino.

He is aimed at the upcoming first trip abroad by the new US Foreign Minister Marco Rubio in Central America. Last week, a spokeswoman confirmed the trip, but without naming the individual countries. According to US media, stops in Panama, Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic are planned from the end of this week.

In his speech, US President Donald Trump had made demands on the Panama Canal on the occasion of his swearing in. Most recently, he had bluntly said several times that control over the important waterway should be in the USA. Mulino had already decidedly rejected Trump’s demands.

The 82 -kilometer channel connects the Atlantic with the Pacific in Central America. It was built by the engineering corps of the US army in the early 20th century. On December 31, 1999, the United States handed over the channel administration to Panama. The recently deceased Democratic US President Jimmy Carter had negotiated the transaction.

6.46 p.m.: After the aircraft accident in Washington, with presumably more than 60 dead, US President Donald Trump blamed his predecessor Barack Obama and Joe Biden as well as diversity programs for allegedly lowered standards in air traffic safety. “I put security in the first place. Obama, bidges and the Democrats put politics in the first place,” said Trump at a press conference in Washington.

Trump thus referred to programs for promoting diversity in the FAA flight inspectorate. He accused that these programs would have reduced the quality standards to the staff to support minorities. His predecessors had found the staff “too white”, said the Republican and added: “And we want the people who are competent.” Trump claimed that the collision of a passenger plane and a military helicopter on Wednesday evening (local time) was caused by a “confluence of bad decisions”.

The air traffic controller only warned the helicopter crew at a moment before the oncoming plane, “when there was very little time” to avoid a collision. As asked for his claims, Trump said: “It could have been that way.” Trump also claimed that the helicopter had flown in an “incredibly bad angle”. Later, however, the president admitted: “We don’t know what led to this crash.”

10 O `clock: US President Donald Trump signed a number of decrees on educational policy on Wednesday. Among other things, schools that have taken over the “critical racial theory” are to be deleted by state financing. The concept of critical racial theory is intended to raise awareness of the racism, which is particularly anchored in legal structures, and is hated by Trump’s Republicans.

In addition, Trump signed a decree on the establishment of a commission on “patriotic education”, which the United States is supposed to represent in a positive light.

Teachers should also be banned to address trans people with the pronouns they have chosen. Many of Trump’s orders concern regulations that are the cause of the individual states, and are therefore not under the responsibility of the federal government. Trump instructed the federal authorities to create a list within 90 days of how he could advance the implementation of his educational policy ideas.