- cross-posted to:
- nottheonion@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- nottheonion@lemmy.world
Summary
Donald Trump criticized Panama Canal fees as “ridiculous” and demanded lower costs or the canal’s return to the US.
In a Truth Social post, Trump also expressed concern about potential Chinese influence over the waterway, despite no direct Chinese control of canal operations.
The canal, transferred to Panama in 1999, is vital for global trade, handling 5% of maritime traffic.
Trump’s comments follow record revenues of $5 billion announced by the Panama Canal Authority. Panama has not yet responded to his statements.
It’s like when a friend gifts you a lottery ticket and you win the lottery so now the friend wants it.
Reality continues to be more absurd than satire. I’m not sure how much more of this i can take.
In other news, Donald trump has demanded that cats now bark.
Hey now let’s not fuck with global trade routes like that now. We are already making other countries uneasy this would make them furious.
it’s not about thinking this is how it works. it’s about manufacturing consent from his cult
Why does he need to do that at this point? He won. He’s going to be the dictator. He doesn’t need their support, he can just get it at gunpoint if they don’t like it.
to froth them up so he doesn’t need to put us at gunpoint. let his cult do that
So, he’s a fascist cheerleader? Good fucking lord.
always has been
The next 4 years are gonna be a blast. Thanks America!
The trauma of 2016-2020 was still raw, but you guys really love sequels!
Hohoho, you think it’ll only be 4?
I appreciate their optimism.
4 years eh? Didn’t he already signal that he wanted to kill the term limit??
Good luck getting enough support to change the Constitution on that
As if the constitution matters to these people…
Exactly it’s just a piece of paper if it’s not actually enforced it means nothing.
Just like all the laws and regulations that are regularly broken and ignored by the rich and have no enforcement.
The law doesn’t mean anything anymore if you have enough money and power. And when the law and justice system fail the citizenry it’s the citizens job to take the law into their own hands.
I am personally sorry and I don’t know how to fix it. :’-(
deleted by creator
Get armed, take a safety class, and be ready with your weapons and first aid supplies. Get some wound vacs and learn how to use them, you could save someone’s life.
If you really want to help fix it, join or start a local mutual aid group. This is where I stall out. I work and travel so much I need my days off to make my back not hurt so much and reset my brain.
“Or we’ll buy our bananas from a competing tropic!”
Old man shouts at clouds. German media organization reports on it and further sane washes idiot’s moronic ramblings.
Details at 11:00.
A canal adventure is exactly what the trump presidency needs
Love watching this dumbass destroy the empire.
The asshole isn’t even in charge yet…
Its funny because I was against giving it up since we built it but I sure as heck am against taking it back. That is not how stability works. It would be equivalent to crimea and far to close to the fucked up thing we have with israel in the world.
If you build something in a foreign country under the threat of military invasion it is indefensible to claim “rightful ownership” because you built it.
thats not really how it happened. It was financed and france had initiated it and then america purchased the project and completed it. It required a treaty and payments for land use.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Canal
Great Britain attempted to develop a canal in 1843. According to the New-York Daily Tribune, 24 August 1843, Barings Bank of London and the Republic of New Granada entered into a contract for the construction of a canal across the Isthmus of Darien (Isthmus of Panama). They referred to it as the Atlantic and Pacific Canal, and it was a wholly British endeavor. Projected for completion in five years, the plan was never carried out. At nearly the same time, other ideas were floated, including a canal (and/or a railroad) across Mexico’s Isthmus of Tehuantepec. That did not develop, either.[9]
In 1846, the Mallarino–Bidlack Treaty, negotiated between the US and New Granada, granted the United States transit rights and the right to intervene militarily in the isthmus. In 1848, the discovery of gold in California, on the West Coast of the United States, generated renewed interest in a canal crossing between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mallarino–Bidlack_Treaty
Officially, it was entitled Tratado de Paz, Amistad, Navegación y Comercio (Treaty of Peace, Friendship, Commerce and Navigation), and was meant to represent an agreement of mutual cooperation. It granted the U.S. significant transit rights over the Panamanian isthmus, as well as military powers to suppress social conflicts and independence struggles targeted against Colombia. Under the Bidlack-Mallarino Treaty, the U.S. intervened militarily many times on the isthmus, usually against civilians, peasant guerrillas, or Liberal Party independence struggles. After the beginning of the California Gold Rush of 1848, the U.S. spent seven years constructing a trans-isthmian Panama Railway. The result of the treaty, however, was to give the United States a legal opening in politically and economically influencing the Panama isthmus, which was part of New Granada at the time, but was later to become the independent country of Panama in accordance with the wishes of the United States. In 1903, however, the United States failed to gain access to a strip on the isthmus for the construction of a canal, and reversed its position on Panamanian secession from the Republic of Colombia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama–United_States_relations
The evolution of the relation between Panama and the USA has followed the pattern of a Panamanian project for the recovering of the territory of the Canal of Panama, a project which became public after the events of May 21, 1958, November 3, 1959, and then on January 9, 1964. The latter day is known in Panama as the Martyrs’ Day (Panama), in which a riot over the right to raise the Panamanian flag in an American school became the vicinity of the Panama Canal.
The following years saw a lengthy negotiation process with the United States, culminating with the Torrijos–Carter Treaties, in which the transfer of the Panama Canal to Panama was set to be completed in December, 1999. The process of transition, however, was made difficult by the existence of the de facto military rule of Manuel Noriega in Panama from 1982 to 1989.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Panama
The United States invaded Panama in mid-December 1989 during the presidency of George H. W. Bush. The stated purpose of the invasion was to depose the de facto ruler of Panama, General Manuel Noriega, who was wanted by U.S. authorities for racketeering and drug trafficking. The operation, codenamed Operation Just Cause, concluded in late January 1990 with the surrender of Noriega.[9] The Panama Defense Forces (PDF) were dissolved, and President-elect Guillermo Endara was sworn into office.
Noriega, who had longstanding ties to United States intelligence agencies, consolidated power to become Panama’s de facto dictator in the early 1980s. In the mid-1980s, relations between Noriega and the U.S. began to deteriorate due to fallout of the murder of Hugo Spadafora and the removal from office of President Nicolas Ardito Barletta. His criminal activities and association with other spy agencies came to light, and in 1988 he was indicted by federal grand juries on several drug-related charges. Negotiations seeking his resignation, which began under the presidency of Ronald Reagan, were ultimately unsuccessful. In 1989, Noriega annulled the results of the Panamanian general elections, which appeared to have been won by opposition candidate Guillermo Endara; President Bush responded by reinforcing the U.S. garrison in the Canal Zone. After a U.S. Marine officer was shot dead at a PDF roadblock, Bush authorized the execution of the Panama invasion plan.
The history of Panama and the US in general and the Canal in particular is riddled with the US meddling violently in the affairs of Panama and suppressing its people on the behalf of US aligned dictators.
yeah thats fine but all the links before the last were before we even got into the canal which again had its own treaty and predates the UN so this is how things like that were one. Nation to nation. The US has teaties with japan to protect the area to. This is the treaty which spelled out payment and such for the canal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hay–Bunau-Varilla_Treaty
The canal is on a crash course with climate change. They’re going to need absolutely massive investment to operate once the lake dries up, and they’re not pulling in massive profits to pay for that. If Trump wants lower fees, he best be ready to pay for them. The reality though is that he’s probably just betting on failure.
So I guess the drought finally eased, and the reservoir that supplies the fresh water for the locks is doing better, but yeah, even with a new dam that should finally get started soon, the canal probably has 50 years or less as a viable commercial route, though honestly 150+ years isn’t a bad run as an economic project, and one of Jimmy Carter’s most humane legacies was overseeing its transfer back to the people who were dominated into letting Americans build it in the first place.
You seriously think Trump is considering further out than next months news cycle?
I think someone looking to milk billions in government contracts has been talking to Trump, and offering kick backs.
You may think me mad but it is like this Trump fella doesn’t have the best interests at heart for the ole U.S. of A.
Putin’s sock puppet?!
You misspelled Fleshlight
I watched a documentary that the canal also tamed the yearly monsoon. I think that’s where they get the water. Granted we’re in for a rollercoaster on rain too.
At this point, I’m on board with a global trade war against the US. Build your stupid wall, surround yourselves with it and rot in the Maga stew you voted for. Come back out to talk to us when you’re ready.
Sadly, they have trilions of debts in the war machinery.
Another 30 years probably
Yet you could say and do worse, and I’ll just shake my head and sadly say “yeah, can’t blame you”
Trump “demands” lots of things. Almost all of them are directly against the interests of the party he’s demanding them from.
He’s a bully who thinks he deserves to get his way all the time in all things. And he’s a crybaby when he doesn’t get what he wants.
And he’s enough of an idiot to come up with a lot of ridiculous things to try and demand.
Trump is that old lady in a backed up check out line arguing with the cashier over her expired coupon. And paying with a check.
And waving around a nuclear arsenal and the most powerful military in the history of the world.
Congress specifically exempted him and only him from direct access to the various superweapons (nuclear, chemical, and viral) that the US has in stockpile, during his last term. That still applies. He has to get permission from Congress and/or the Joint Chiefs to use them
Do you have a source or something for further reading?
I don’t know if it passed, but I seem to recall that it did
That doesn’t describe legislation. From what I understand, that situation is just Pelosi asking for a favor, not much else.
Or their loose change that was accumulating