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US flag and Trump posters burned in Panama after canal threats
Panamanian workers’ unions burned a US flag along with posters of Donald Trump on Monday following threats by the US president-elect to demand the return of the Panama Canal .
The National Union of Construction and Related Industry Workers (Suntracs), the most powerful in Panama, sent a video burning a US flag and photos with the slogan “Fuck Trump” in front of Parliament as part of a demonstration against a bill under debate to reform Social Security.
EFE was also able to see how leaflets with Trump’s face were set on fire. The unions also placed a huge poster on a fence outside Parliament that read “Donald Trump. Public Enemy of Panama. Yankee animal, leave the canal!”
“We are rejecting Donald Trump’s threats. This territory belongs to Panamanians and here we exercise our determination, sovereignty, our canal and our territory. No oligarch or non-oligarch who is a traitor to the country will be able to give up our territory,” said Suntracs Secretary General Saul Mendez in the video released by them.
Trump, who will assume the presidency of the United States on January 20 , complained on Saturday and also this Sunday about the “exorbitant” tariffs and the management of the Panama Canal, and threatened to demand its “return” if the “moral and legal” principles are not respected.
This has provoked a storm of criticism and a reaction from the Government of Panama, which through President José Raúl Mulino clarified on Sunday that “every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjacent areas is Panama’s and will continue to be so” so that “the sovereignty and independence of our country are not negotiable.”
The Panama Canal was built by the United States, which opened it in 1914 and administered it until its transfer to the Panamanian State on December 31, 1999, as established in the Torrijos-Carter Treaties signed on September 7, 1977 in Washington by the then presidents of Panama Omar Torrijos (1929-1981) and American Jimmy Carter (1977-1981).
Trump also criticized former President Carter, who “foolishly gave it away (the canal) for a dollar during his term,” and again claimed that China has interference in the administration of the waterway, of which the United States is the main user.
Trump’s words come after Panama commemorated on December 20 the 35th anniversary of the US invasion to capture dictator Manuel Antonio Noriega on drug trafficking charges, which left between 500 and 4,000 dead, and just days away from the 25th anniversary of the transfer of the canal.
Furthermore, this is not the first time that Trump has made references to the canal: in 2023 he said, for the first time, that the United States sold the waterway for “one dollar” and that it was “controlled by China” and in 2011 he declared that his country “stupidly” gave Panama the canal “in exchange for nothing”, which caused the Municipal Council of the Panamanian capital to declare him persona non grata at the time.
The Panama Canal is a fundamental part of the country’s economy. It generated revenues of approximately 4.986 billion dollars in fiscal year 2024, 1% more than the previous year, and contributed 2.4707 billion dollars to the treasury.
