An Asset Too Precious to Cede Makes Panama Leader a Trump Target
- Trump threatens to retake canal if his demands aren’t met
- Mulino makes concessions but says it will remain Panama’s
Panama’s Jose Raul Mulino had already done a lot to appease the incoming American president. He’d clamped down on migration routes and declared his country the new southern border for the US.
But that was before Donald Trump came asking for the one thing the president of the tiny Central American country could never cede — control of the Panama Canal. In the span of weeks, the 65-year-old former diplomat had to think on his feet about appeasing the US on a whole other front to protect his nation’s most precious asset.