Rubio Warns Panama Over Chinese Influence in Canal

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday threatened action against Panama without immediate changes to reduce Chinese influence on the canal, but the country's leader insisted he was not afraid of a US invasion and offered talks.

- Agence France-Presse

PANAMA CITY: On his first trip overseas as the top US diplomat, Rubio took a guided tour of the canal accompanied by its Panamanian administrator as a South Korean-affiliated oil tanker and Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship passed through the vital link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

But Rubio was said to have had a firmer message in private, telling Panama that President Donald Trump had determined that the country had violated terms of the treaty that handed over the canal in 1999.

He pointed to the "influence and control" of China over the canal, through which some 40% of US container traffic passes.