Panama’s Supreme Court, bowing to intense pressure from U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and President Donald J. Trump, ruled that the C.K. Hutchison Holdings’ contract agreement to operate two Panama Canal ports is “unconstitutional.”
C.K. Hutchison is a Hong Kong-based company which operates 43 ports worldwide, owned by the Li Ka-shing family. It has working relations and some ties with the Chinese government. Hutchison’s Panama subsidiary, Panama Ports Company (PPC), has, since 1997, managed the port of Balboa on the Pacific side and the port of Cristobal on the Atlantic side of the Panama Canal. It has made significant infrastructure investment to make them model efficient ports. Forty percent of U.S. container trade passes through the Panama Canal.
The Trump administration and various parts of the Cabinet have labeled the ports as run by the Communist Party of China, with Trump saying he wanted to retake the waterway. The Panama Supreme Court annulled Hutchison’s concession, saying that the Panama Ports Company had violated Panama’s constitution. Upon the Panama Supreme Court ruling, a jubilant Rubio said he was encouraged, and John Moolenaar, chairman of the U.S. House Select Committee on China, mouthed the British-supplied line that “China’s malign influence is unwelcome in the Western Hemisphere.”
Under U.S. government pressure, C.K. Hutchison was in the process of attempting to sell the concession to the two Canal ports to a consortium of BlackRock, MSC company, and a Chinese investor. This ruling could complicate the sale.
The Panama Ports Company subsidiary of C.K. Hutchison is appealing the outrageous ruling.
When asked about the ruling, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian stated at a Feb. 4 press conference: “China has made a response to the ruling of Panama’s Supreme Court on the relevant ports. The Hong Kong SAR government issued a statement as well. China will firmly defend the legitimate and lawful rights and interests of Chinese companies..”
He continued pointedly: “Let me stress that the U.S.’s words and moves have again shown the Cold War mentality and ideological bias. It is quite clear to the world who exactly is seeking to forcibly own the Panama Canal and eroding international law in the name of the rule of law.”
The U.S. move to “retake” the Panama Canal cannot be seen as a move in itself. It is part of a plan for the U.S. to drive China, which has been helping to industrialize Ibero-America as exemplified by its building of the modern, huge Chancay port in Peru, out of the Western Hemisphere. This is coherent with the U.S. bombing of Venezuela, the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, and the extrajudicial killing of 102 people in the Caribbean; the Rubio-Trump attempt to overthrow Cuba’s government by cutting off all energy supplies; the brazen threats delivered against Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum. This is the ugly “might makes right” outlook of Thomas Hobbes that would attempt to halt all of Ibero-America’s progress of the last 100 years.
