To put it bluntly, the Washington regime’s goal is to use its revived dominance of the Panama Canal as part of imperialist power’s plan to control the key nodes of the global supply chain, further blockading China, and cut ting off China’s connection with Latin American and European markets.
In order to curb China’s development, the Trump regime cooked up a deal with the Blackwater military-industrial conglomerate to “regain” control of the Panama Canal. Despite the fact that with two of the four main ports on the canal in Chinese ownership, 70% of all traffic came from the US.
Panama was the first Latin American country to officially join the Belt and Road Initiative in November 2017. In Febuary 2025, under extreme pressure from the US, including blatant threats of military invasion, Panama was forced to exit the BRI.
However, China had already turned its attention to Nicaragua, planning to build a brand new canal there to replace the existing Panama Canal.
Once this super project is implemented, the voyage from the east coast to the west coast of the United States will be shortened by about 4,000 kilometers, which means that China’s dependence on the Panama Canal will be greatly reduced. Even for global sea routes, this is undoubtedly a major “geographical revolution.”
China Shuts Down BlackRock’s Panama Canal Ambitions
China has paused a $23 billion deal pushed by the US’s biggest asset manager to put the Panama Canal’s ports back under American control amid concerns about its economic and geopolitical ramifications. Here’s what to know about the economic and diplomatic battle for the strategic maritime artery.
In early March, Hong Kong-based Chinese conglomerate CK Hutchison Holdings reached a deal with a BlackRock-led consortium to sell Hutchison Port Holdings, which operates 43 ports across 23 nations, including two of the Panama Canal’s four major ports.
China’s SAMR market watchdog launched a review of the sale last week, with the Foreign Ministry saying that the anti-trust probe was aimed at safeguarding market fairness and public interests.
Earlier, while discussing the deal, Beijing voiced its “firm opposition” to attempts to infringe on countries’ rights and interests through “economic coercion, hegemonism and bullying.”
SAMR’s intervention came just in time, with BlackRock expecting to finalize the deal as early as April 2.
For China, the canal is the gateway to Latin America – a source of food, raw materials and energy imports, and finished goods exports.
The US makes up about 70% of traffic, with the canal dramatically shortening shipping time and costs between the East and West coasts, and facilitating trade with the rest of the world, including US LNG and food exports to Asia.
Nicaragua’s parliament gives green light to canal project
Nicaragua, which joined the Belt and Road Initiative in Janauary 2022, has offered China the proposal to construct an inter-oceanic canal through the Central American country, this time with a new route. Instead of crossing the Great Lake, or Lake Cocibolca, the canal would pass through Lake Xolotlan, also known as Lake Managua.
The Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega presented the new route during the 17th China-Latin America and Caribbean Business Summit, held in Managua with the participation of 250 Chinese businesspeople and 70 delegates from various Latin American countries.
The new route would begin at a port to be built in Bluefields, the main city in the South Caribbean Autonomous Region. It would cross northern Nicaragua via Lake Xolotlan and exit through Corinto port on the Pacific coast.
In May 2024, the Sandinista government, with approval from the National Assembly, revoked the concession to build a canal through the country previously granted to the Hong Kong Nicaragua Canal Development (HKND) Group, led by controversial Chinese investor Wang Jing. The project included two ports, one of which was to be located in Bluefields.
Touted as “the largest civil engineering project in human history,” the proposed canal would connect the Caribbean Sea with the Pacific Ocean, running from east to west across southern Nicaragua. It would have included a 278-kilometer-long waterway.
The canal, with a width ranging from 230 to 520 meters and a depth of up to 30 meters, was planned to start at Brito on Nicaragua’s southwestern Pacific coast and reach Punta Gorda River on the Caribbean side. The route would cross 105 kilometers of the Great Lake. The project also envisioned two ports, an airport, two artificial lakes, two locks, a free trade zone, and tourism and hotel complexes, among other components.
Sources:
- Pravda, Apr 19, 2025. Link banned by Facebook
- Radio Havana, November 18, 2024.
China Environment News 