President Trump and geopolitical considerations related to the Chinese Communist Party had nothing to do with it, according to the Hong Kong–based firm CK Hutchinson, which has been running the ports on either side of the Panama Canal. Also according to BlackRock, buyer of the ports (“BlackRock Agrees to Buy Panama Canal Ports in Win for Trump Effort to Reassert U.S. Influence,” National Review, March 4, 2025).
National Review’s Andrew McCarthy says that when he asked BlackRock “whether the Trump administration was involved in the deal,” he was referred by a company spokesman “to CK Hutchison’s statement asserting that geopolitics did not play a role in the transaction.”
CK Hutchinson co-managing director Frank Sixt says: “I would like to stress that the Transaction is purely commercial in nature and wholly unrelated to recent political news reports concerning the Panama Port.”
Since everybody knows different, what is the point, really, of such asseverations? Anyway:
The deal brings ownership of key Panama Canal ports back into American hands, making it a win for President Donald Trump, who has warned against the perils of China’s growing amount of influence over the canal.
The deal is not limited to Panama.
BlackRock’s group of investors is buying two Panama Canal ports, Balboa and Cristobal, and various companies owned by CK Hutchison that control 43 ports in 23 countries worldwide. The Panama Canal transaction will proceed on a different timetable than the rest of the ports, because the Panamanian government will have to confirm it….
A person familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal that BlackRock briefed the Trump administration and Congress on the transaction.
President Trump said during his inaugural address that the U.S. would “take back” the Panama Canal and criticized the deal agreed to by former President Jimmy Carter that ceded control of it after the U.S. built the canal. Carter signed the agreement in 1977 and the U.S. fully relinquished control of the Panama Canal in December 1999, over two decades later. The U.S. built the canal from 1904 to 1914. Thousands of American workers died in the process.
A China-based firm is letting go of the Panama Canal ports (assuming that the government of Panama approves the deal). Just a coincidence, though, that from day one of his second term, President Trump has been making a big issue of Chinese Communist Party influence in the Panama Canal region?
