Our collective security and sovereignty are under attack in all domains
From the deck of a nuclear carrier anchored in Panamanian waters, the head of U.S. Southern Command delivered a warning that echoes a familiar tension in the long history of great powers and strategic waterways: China, Russia, and Iran, he said, are working to entrench themselves in Latin America, with the Panama Canal as the ultimate prize. The warning arrived in a landscape already reshaped — a Panamanian court had just nullified Chinese port concessions that had inflamed Washington for years — yet the underlying contest for hemispheric influence, Donovan insisted, had not abated. In the space between a resolved legal dispute and a persisting geopolitical rivalry, Panama and the United States found themselves publicly aligned, bound by shared anxieties about sovereignty, commerce, and the criminal networks that thrive in the shadow of great-power competition.
- A U.S. general standing aboard a nuclear carrier in the Panama Canal zone is not a subtle signal — it is a deliberate declaration that Washington views the hemisphere as contested ground.
- China, Russia, and Iran are named as active threats, not hypothetical ones, with the canal's chokepoint over global trade cited as the clearest target of their ambitions.
- The crisis that nearly ruptured U.S.-Panama relations — Trump's 2025 threats to seize the canal over Chinese port control — has been defused by a Panamanian court ruling that stripped the Hutchison subsidiary of its concessions.
- Panama's president Mulino, once firm in resisting Washington's pressure, now stands alongside U.S. commanders under the banner of Trump's 'Shield of the Americas,' a coalition aimed at organized crime across the region.
- The immediate flashpoint has passed, but Donovan's broadened warnings suggest the United States is repositioning its concern from a single legal dispute to a wider, longer struggle for regional alignment.
Francis Donovan, head of U.S. Southern Command, delivered a pointed warning from the deck of the USS Nimitz, anchored in Panamanian waters during the Mares del Sur 2026 military exercise. China, Russia, and Iran, he said, were actively working to expand their influence across Latin America — and the Panama Canal, through which roughly six percent of global maritime trade flows, was the region's most consequential prize. His language was not cautionary but urgent: active defense, deterrence, readiness for confrontation.
The following day, Donovan met with Panamanian president José Raúl Mulino at the presidential palace. The two aligned on protecting canal-adjacent ports, securing supply chains, and confronting organized crime — a threat Donovan framed as inseparable from the broader question of foreign influence. Panama had already joined Trump's 'Shield of the Americas' coalition in March, and the meeting deepened that alignment.
The backdrop to this unity was a recent and bitter dispute. In 2025, Trump had threatened to seize the canal, pointing to the fact that two major surrounding ports were operated by a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison. Panamanian officials, Mulino among them, had pushed back sharply, refusing to be drawn into Washington's rivalry with Beijing. Then, on February 23, a Panamanian court nullified the Hutchison concession entirely — a final, unappealable ruling that removed the legal and factual basis for Trump's most inflammatory claims.
Donovan's visit arrived in this transformed landscape. Chinese operational control of those ports was gone. Yet his warnings persisted and widened, reframed around Russia, Iran, and the diffuse threat of criminal networks. The message was that the crisis may have passed, but the competition for the hemisphere had not — and that Panama and the United States, whatever their recent tensions, now stood on the same side of it.
Francis Donovan, the head of U.S. Southern Command, stood aboard the USS Nimitz—a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier anchored in Panamanian waters—and delivered a stark warning to the assembled officials and press. China, Russia, and Iran, he said, were working to entrench themselves in Latin America, and they had their eyes on the region's most vital artery: the Panama Canal. He called their intentions "malign influence," a phrase he repeated with emphasis, and framed the threat not as a distant concern but as an active assault on the security and sovereignty of the United States, Panama, and their allies across the hemisphere.
Donovan was in Panama as part of a broader military exercise called Mares del Sur 2026—Southern Seas 2026—which would take the Nimitz and its accompanying vessels down the coast of South America. The timing was deliberate. His message was meant to resonate not just in Panama City but across the region: the great powers were circling, and the Western Hemisphere needed to stand together. He spoke of the need for active defense, of deterrence and defeat, language that suggested not merely vigilance but readiness for confrontation. The canal itself—that 51-mile ribbon of water that connects the Atlantic and Pacific and through which roughly 6 percent of global maritime trade flows—was the prize he kept returning to. Control it, or influence it, and you control a chokepoint of global commerce.
The next day, Donovan sat down with Panama's president, José Raúl Mulino, at the Palacio de las Garzas, the presidential residence. The two men found common ground on a strategy to protect the ports surrounding the canal, to secure supply chains, and to establish what the official statement called "a climate of peace, order, and prosperity in the hemisphere." But beneath the diplomatic language lay a more pointed concern: organized crime and drug trafficking, which had become as much a threat to regional stability as any foreign power. Panama had already joined Trump's "Shield of the Americas" alliance in March—a coalition of right-leaning Latin American governments united against criminal networks. Now, with Donovan's visit, the alignment seemed to deepen.
Yet this moment of apparent unity masked a recent and bitter dispute. Just months earlier, in 2025, Donald Trump had threatened to seize the canal itself, claiming that Chinese influence over the waterway had grown so extensive that American interests were at risk. He pointed to a specific fact: two of the five major ports surrounding the canal were operated by a subsidiary of CK Hutchison, a Hong Kong-based conglomerate. Trump's language had been inflammatory, and Panamanian officials had pushed back hard, insisting that their country would not become a pawn in Washington's geopolitical struggle with Beijing. Mulino had been particularly firm, demanding that the United States not drag Panama into its rivalry with China.
Then, on February 23 of this year, a Panamanian court issued a ruling that changed the equation. The judge declared the concession granted to the Hutchison subsidiary null and void—a final, unappealable decision. The Chinese operator would lose control of those two ports. The legal blow was swift and decisive, and it removed the factual basis for Trump's most inflammatory claims. Suddenly, the threat that had seemed so urgent, so immediate, had been legally dismantled.
Donovan's visit, then, arrived in a landscape transformed. The canal was no longer, in any practical sense, under Chinese operational control. Yet his warnings about malign influence persisted, broadened now to encompass Russia and Iran as well, and reframed around the larger question of regional stability and the spread of organized crime. The message was clear: even if the immediate crisis had passed, the underlying competition for influence in the Western Hemisphere remained real and urgent. Panama and the United States were now aligned, at least publicly, in their determination to keep that influence at bay.
Citações Notáveis
China, Russia and Iran seek to establish themselves to increase their malign influence and access, threatening key terrain like the Panama Canal to enrich themselves and sow instability across the hemisphere— Francis Donovan, U.S. Southern Command chief
Our collective security and sovereignty are under attack in all domains— Francis Donovan
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why did Donovan feel the need to make this warning now, when the court had already resolved the Chinese port issue?
Because the court ruling solved a specific problem—the Hutchison concession—but it didn't address what he saw as a broader pattern. China, Russia, and Iran weren't just operating ports. They were, in his view, trying to establish footholds across the region.
But what does "malign influence" actually mean in practice? Is he talking about military bases, economic control, intelligence operations?
He didn't specify, which is part of the problem. He was painting with a broad brush—ports, supply chains, the canal itself. The vagueness made it sound more ominous than any single concrete threat.
How did Mulino respond to all this?
He aligned with it publicly. He joined Trump's Shield of the Americas alliance and met with Donovan to discuss strategy. But you have to remember—just months ago, Mulino was telling Washington not to drag Panama into its fight with China. Now he's standing shoulder to shoulder with the U.S. military.
What changed his mind?
Partly, the court ruling gave him political cover. He could say the Chinese threat had been neutralized. But also, organized crime is a real problem in Panama, and the U.S. was offering partnership on that front. Sometimes alignment happens not because you agree on everything, but because you need help with what's actually hurting you.
So the canal threat was real, or was it always political theater?
The court's decision suggests it was overstated. But that doesn't mean the underlying competition isn't real. The question is whether it required the kind of military posturing Donovan was displaying.