PHOENIX — PHOENIX (AP) — Donald Trump suggested on Sunday that his new government could try to regain control of the region Panama Canal that the United States is “foolish.” relinquished to its Central American ally, claiming shippers are being charged ‘ridiculously’ reimbursements to continue essential transport channel that connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
The Republican president-elect used his first major rally since winning the White House on November 5 to bask in his return to power as a large audience of conservatives cheered, a show of party unity at odds with a just concluded agreement. budget battle on Capitol Hill, where some Republican lawmakers openly defied the law the demands of their leader.
Speaking to his supporters at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest in Arizona, Trump promised his “dream team cabinet” would deliver a booming economy, close America’s borders and quickly end wars in Israel and Ukraine.
“I am proud to announce that America’s Golden Age is upon us,” Trump said. “There is a spirit that we have now that we didn’t have just a short time ago.”
His appearance capped a four-day pep rally that drew more than 20,000 activists and projected an image of Republican cohesion despite the past week’s turbulence in Washington, with Trump pulling the strings from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, as Congress tried to avoid government. shutdown on the way to the Christmas holidays.
House Republicans struck a bipartisan deal after Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk voiced their opposition on social media. Budget hawks ignored Trump’s request to increase the country’s budget debt ceilingwhich would have saved several more rounds of the same fight after he came to power on January 20, 2025, with Republicans having limited control of the House of Representatives and the Senate. The final agreement did not address the issue and there was no closure.
Trump made no mention of the congressional drama in his remarks in Phoenix, although he did reference Musk’s growing power. To suggestions that “President Trump has ceded the presidency to Elon,” Trump made it clear: “No, no. That doesn’t happen.’
“He’s not going to be president,” Trump said.
Trump opened the speech by saying, “we want to try to bring everyone together. We’re going to try. We’re really going to try.” He then suggested that Democrats have “lost confidence” and are “confused” after the election, but will ultimately “come to our side because we want them.”
At the top of a list of grievances – some old, some new – was the Panama Canal.
“We’re getting ripped off on the Panama Canal,” he said, complaining that his country was “foolishly giving it away.”
The US has transferred control of the waterway Panama in 1999 under a treaty signed in 1977 under President Jimmy Carter. Panama’s current president, José Raúl Mulino, is a conservative populist and the country is a strong ally of the US. The canal is crucial to the Panamanian economy, generating about a fifth of that government’s annual revenue.
Mulino was scheduled to speak about Trump’s comments later Sunday in Panama City.
The canal relies on reservoirs to operate its locks. The country was hit hard by the 2023 drought in Central America, which forced the country to significantly reduce the number of daily ship crossing slots. With fewer ships using the canal each day, administrators also increased the fees charged to all shippers for reserving a slot.
With the weather returning to normal in the later months of this year, transport across the canal has normalised. But price increases are still expected for next year.
Trump said that when he is president, “this complete rip-off” of the US “will stop immediately.” If not, he said, the waterway could be “completely and without question returned to the United States of America.”
He did not explain how that would be possible.
Trump’s appearance at the Turning Point annual meeting confirmed the growing influence of the group and its founder. Charlie Kirkhave had in the conservative movement. Kirk’s organization hired thousands of field organizers in presidential battlegrounds, helping Trump make important gains among rare voters and other groups of people who have become more Democratic in recent decades, including younger voters, black men and Latino men.
“You had the basic armies of Turning Point,” Trump said. “It’s not my victory, it’s your victory.”
Earlier Sunday, Trump said Stephen Miran, who worked at the Treasury Department during Trump’s first term, was his choice to lead the Council of Economic Advisers.
And Australian billionaire Anthony Pratt announced he would donate $1.1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund to supplement the $14 million he said he had already given to Make America Great Again Inc.’s super political action committee. – making him one of the president-elect’s top donors. .
Pratt is chairman of Pratt Industries, which uses recycled paper and boxes as raw materials in a process that produces new cardboard.
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Weissert reported from West Palm Beach, Florida. Associated Press writer Manuel Rueda in Bogota, Colombia, contributed to this report.