Some Panamanians were always aware that Donald Trump's threats to take control of the Panama Canal were merely part of the new game for the world's redistribution—in our specific case, of the 'Western Hemisphere'—played by a powerful and, moreover, dishonest player like the U.S. president.
In the Panamanian case, the oligarchy that has ruled for the duration of the Republic, with the exception of the 21 years of military government, has managed public affairs with opacity, on the one hand, to 'steal' public funds and, on the other, to conceal its political duplicity and submission to the geopolitical and imperialist strategy of the 'turbulent and brutal North' of the United States.
Of course, the conduct of the 'dictator' currently ruling Panama has been no exception to the rule. Indeed, the president of the Republic, who, by his own admission, came to power by blackmailing the magistrates of the Electoral Tribunal (threatening to 'set the country on fire from all four corners'), in the face of his government's explicit and evident political weakness, decided to submit to the 'enlistment' of Donald Trump as a vassal, under the imperialist euphemism of 'regional champions.'
The impositions—in the case of Panama—were brutal, shameless, and humiliating, but hidden by the '100% business' government of the 'dictator' through the negotiation of two bilateral treaties with the U.S., known as the 'Ábrego-Hegseth Memorandum of Understanding' and the 'Vásquez-Hegseth Joint Declaration.'
Basically, the first treaty establishes three (3) U.S. bases on national territory, and as a consequence of these agreements, the accelerated militarization of the Public Force in open violation of the Political Constitution of the Republic and the existing Treaty of Neutrality.
Under the second treaty, U.S. warships are exempt from paying 'tolls,' which constitutes a serious injury to the patrimony of the Panamanian State and also violates the Treaty of Neutrality and the regulations for the administration of the Panama Canal.
To date, both treaties are unconstitutional and illegal because they have not been submitted for approval by the National Assembly of Deputies and the subsequent referendum, as demanded by the supreme law.
Of course, the anti-national and anti-patriotic conduct of the 'dictator' and his gang of vagabonds running this country has a dark origin, which is enshrined in the 'National Security Strategy of the United States of America,' particularly in the 'Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.'
'What does the Trump Corollary consist of?'
No more and no less than the revival of the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, when the U.S. president proclaimed 'America for the Americans,' an imperialist sentence that means, in practice: The Latin American continent for the use and abuse of North America.
It is Trump's 'National Security Doctrine' for Latin America, which consists of replicating the Monroe Doctrine in the 21st century.
The euphemism used in Trump's document is the recruitment of 'regional champions' (right-wing and far-right Latin American leaders willing to play a servile role) who will fulfill the new 'manifest destiny' of handing over national riches to the voracity of transnational corporations, especially of U.S. origin, and in the particular case of Panama, those derived from our 'comparative and competitive advantages': the Panama Canal and the Canal's conglomerate.
Additionally, the 'dictator' has meekly allowed Panamanian territory to be used by the U.S. army as a 'spearhead' for aggression and interference in the internal affairs of brotherly countries of 'our America.'
'As simple as that!'
For this, threats and blackmail are his 'main cards.'
