Panama has also agreed to end an infrastructure agreement with China and conduct a financial audit of Hong Kong–based CK Hutchison Holdings, which controls ports on the canal’s opposite sides. Whether all of this will be enough to keep Trump happy and allow Panama not to worry about a full U.S. military takeover of the canal remains to be seen.

The Trump administration has made the security of the canal, built by the U.S. more than a century ago, a top priority for its Western Hemisphere policy.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Tuesday the Panama Canal faces ongoing threats from China but that together the United States and Panama will keep it secure.

A subsidiary of a Hong Kong conglomerate, which is embroiled in U.S.-China tensions over its Panama Canal port assets has denied allegations that it had failed to pay about $1.2 billion to the Central

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth suggested the possibility of reestablishing a U.S. military presence in the country to help secure the Panama Canal, a proposal that was swiftly rejected by Panamanian officials.

Capt. Efraín Hallax, 73, has been steering vessels through the canal, and he has seen it all, from a dictator’s fall to the rise of U.S. interest in retaking the waterway.

Panama’s comptroller authority says an audit found irregularities in the renewal of a 25-year port concession in the interoceanic canal and it would request an investigation into the authorization of

U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has again put China at the center of U.S. priorities in the western hemisphere, one day after calling the world power a threat to the Panama Canal.