Pleasant surprise, Senator Cantwell D-WA shines in Senate Panama Canal Hearings
Must see TV. The Senate’s Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation’s hearing today (01-28-25) on Panama Canal, committee hearing, “Fees and Foreign Influence: Examining the Panama Canal and Its Impact on U.S. Trade and National Security,” provides vital information that is not being well or at all presented by national and local media outlets, that China really is engaged in embedding itself in the operations of the Panama Canal, that it is a threat to the U.S.s national and global interests – as President Trump has emphatically and clearly stated.
Instead, the media has cast Trump’s focus on the Panama Canal matter as just more White House rhetoric, overreactive, posturing for self-aggrandizement, and are instead focused on emphasizing by and large, anti-Trump, Resist, and vitriol themes against the president and his supporters, and about the Canal.
However, this committee hearing shows that even the Dems are concerned about a China threat, even though their party, President Biden, for the better part of four years failed to bring the well-known problems with the security of the Panama Canal to the nation’s attention.
Senator Cantwell’s opening remarks clearly came down in alignment with President Trump, that the Panama Canal is a vital interest of the United States, that the U.S. has an absolute right to enforce the Panama Canal treaty requirements, that China’s presence is suspect, and problematic, that China is no friend of the United States and must be stopped in its tracks at the Canal – and everywhere around the world where it is threatening and seeking to disrupt the U.S.’s national interests.
Watch or listen to Senator Cantwell’s complete remarks here:
Watch or listen to the entire hearing here:
As Senator Ted Cruz R-TX notes, “Serving forty percent of U.S. seaborne container trade, the Panama Canal is vital to American economic and national security interests. The United States paid for and built the Panama Canal, but Panama is treating America unfairly and ceding control of key infrastructure to China. I hope this hearing better informs members of the Commerce Committee about the challenges facing the maritime industry, the extent of foreign influence in Panama, and how the Panamanian government may be falling short of its obligations under the Neutrality Treaty.”
