The US government ships may cross the Panama Canal without paying any rate, the US State Department reported Wednesday.
“This saves the US government millions of dollars a year,” the department said in his X account.
The measure occurred days after the visit of the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, to the Central American country, where he said that President Donald Trump will not accept that the ‘status quo’ is maintained with respect to the Panama Canal if the influence of China About the region continues to increase.
After meeting with Rubio, the Panamanian president, José Raúl Mulino, also said that his country will not renew the memorandum of understanding of the ‘Strip and the Route’ initiative, signed with China in 2017.
The increase in traffic rates, caused by droughts, was one of the reasons for the discontent of the Republican president, who described them as “exorbitant.”
The Panama Canal plays a huge role in the logistics of the United States commercial flows. About 40 % of the US annual US containers traffic passes through that road, which means the transfer of an approximate total of 270,000 million dollars in charge per year. The North American country also stands out as the main client of that maritime service, with 73 % of all traffic.
With RT information.
