President-elect Donald Trump issued a Christmas message on Truth Social that once again reiterated his stance on resecuring the Panama Canal, turning Canada into America’s 51st state, the annexation of Greenland, and President Joe Biden’s decision to commute the death sentences of nearly 40 prisoners.
“Merry Christmas to all, including to the wonderful soldiers of China, who are lovingly, but illegally, operating the Panama Canal (where we lost 38,000 people in its building 110 years ago),” his address on Truth Social began, adding that the United States was always expected to spend billions for repairs without getting a say in “anything.”
Republican lawmakers like Sen. Marco Rubio and former Rep. Matt Gaetz have previously expressed concern for the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) growing influence around the canal. A Hong Kong-based company Hutchison Ports PPC has been the operator of Balboa Port on the Pacific side and the Cristóbal Port at the Atlantic entrance of the canal since 1997 and is contracted to continue to do so for another 20 years. The Latin American nation also joined the CCP’s Belt and Road Initiative in 2017….