Panama Announces Joint Canal Defense Training With US

US and Panamanian forces on Monday will begin joint training aimed at protecting the strategic shipping route of the Central American country’s canal, officials said. On January 2, Panama’s President Jose Raul Mulino declared an end to tensions with the United States after Donald Trump threatened in 2025 to reclaim the canal, alleging it was being controlled by China.

Panamanian and US military personnel take part in a survival maneuver training led by the United States Army at the Jungle School in the former US military base Sherman in Colon, Panama,

About 50 Navy personnel and 61 Panamanian air, navy and police units will join in the exercises at air and naval bases in Panama, its Security Ministry said in a statement, following three similar drills in 2025. The joint program aims to improve forces’ “capacity to respond in operational scenarios” for the canal’s protection, the statement said.

Some Panamanians Reject the Joint Military Drills with the USA

Panama City, January 11: Social organizations in Panama rejected the announcement by the Ministry of Security (Minseg) regarding joint military exercises with the United States. According to a report from the government institution, some 50 U.S. Marines will participate in a training program from Monday until February 26 at the Jungle Warfare School in the Caribbean province of Colon and at the Captain Noel Rodriguez Naval Base in the capital. For groups such as the National Front for the Defense of Economic and Social Rights (Frenadeso), these types of maneuvers are authorized by a memorandum of understanding signed last April between Panama and Washington, which they consider detrimental to national sovereignty, as it allows the presence of foreign troops and the establishment of military bases.

In a statement issued by Frenadeso, signed by its coordinator Jorge Guzman, it is asserted that this type of training is not “cooperation,” but rather interference and aggression against national sovereignty. The memorandum signed in 2025, the statement specifies, is an act of surrender intended to normalize the foreign military presence and transform Panama into a platform for geopolitical operations against sister nations like Venezuela, under the pretexts of security, migration, or drug trafficking.

In the statement, the group demanded the immediate cessation of these training exercises and the genuine defense of independence. “Panama is a sovereign and neutral country, not a ramp for imperial aggression,” the document states. Since December 2025, this type of US military presence has intensified in Panama, under the pretext of fighting drug trafficking and following threats from President Donald Trump to retake control of the interoceanic waterway, including the use of force, due to an alleged “malign influence” from China on the route—something denied by authorities from both nations.

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