Since profitable re-election Trump has repeatedly returned to the concept of US territorial growth – together with taking again the Panama Canal.

Throughout the information convention, Trump mentioned the canal “is significant to our nation” and claimed “it is being operated by China”.

He beforehand accused Panama of overcharging US ships to make use of the waterway, which connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino has rejected Trump’s claims and mentioned there may be “completely no Chinese language interference” within the canal.

A Hong Kong-based firm, CK Hutchison Holdings, manages two ports on the canal’s entrances.

The canal was constructed within the early 1900s and the US maintained management over the canal zone till 1977, when treaties negotiated beneath President Jimmy Carter step by step ceded the land again to Panama.

“Giving the Panama Canal to Panama was a really huge mistake,” Trump mentioned. “Look, [Carter] was man… However that was a giant mistake.”

It is unclear how severe the president-elect is about including to the territory of the US, significantly in the case of Canada, a rustic of 41 million individuals and the second-largest nation by space on the earth.

Throughout the information convention, Trump additionally repeated plenty of falsehoods and odd conspiracy theories, together with suggesting that Hezbollah, the Islamist militant group, was concerned within the US Capitol riot of 2021.