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The Panama Canal (via Alamy/ 3A061YT)
What links the Panama Canal and the Ukraine War Two things: China, and Trump getting his way.
You’ll remember President Trump telling us he was going to “take back the Panama Canal’. This week, he did. Some people thought he meant he was going to invade Panama, yet another example of taking him literally despite a decade of his configurative broadbrush hyperbole manner of speaking. Who needs the Marine Corp when you have America’s BlackRock Inc.
This week, the world’s largest asset manager led a consortium that will buy a controlling stake in two ports on the canal from a Chinese company -CK Hutchison. In a 21st century version of the Monroe Doctrine, President Trump had said China had taken over the waterway and that this was a strategic danger to the USA.