April 17, 2025
Trump the Panama Canel is not for sale
A lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Memorandum of Understanding signed between the Panamanian Ministry of Public Security and the US Department of Defense has been filed with the Constitutional Court.
Amid a US military plan to take over the Panama Canal, lawyer Juan Ramón Sevillano Callejas filed a constitutional challenge on Wednesday with the Constitutional Court against the recent security agreement signed between the Pentagon and the Panamanian Ministry of Defense.
Sevillano Callejas seeks to have the Memorandum of Understanding signed between the Panamanian Ministry of Public Security and the US Department of Defense regarding cooperative activities in the field of security, dated April 9, 2025, declared unconstitutional.
He considered it contrary to the Constitution and the Treaty of Permanent Neutrality of the Canal, among numerous articles of the Constitution and laws. In support of his claim, the lawyer recalled that the occupant of the White House, Donald Trump, has reiterated that he will recover the Panama Canal by any means necessary and has not spared threats in this regard.
He denounced that these threats materialized through the visit of Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth, asserting that both officials echoed the lies spread by Trump about the interoceanic waterway.
Callejas pointed out that the agreement signed between Hegseth and Panamanian Defense Minister Frank Abrego attempts to place a foreign army with unlimited targets and equipment in areas adjacent to the canal, under the guise of joint training operations, which even violates Abrego’s powers under the country’s Constitution.
The challenge states that this is dangerous for national integrity and sovereignty. In addition to violating the Constitution, it infringes on the Panama Canal Treaty of Neutrality, which clearly details that “after the termination of the Panama Canal Treaty, only the Republic of Panama shall manage the Canal and maintain military forces, defense sites, and military installations within its national territory.”
In particular, he emphasized that point one of the memorandum allows for any other type of activity, “in such a way that, if the (Panamanian) government gives its consent to US troops to quell protests in our country, for any reason or cause, they will be protected by this memorandum.”
The purpose of this document is for the US to control the security of the Canal. Callejas recalled that, according to the Constitution, everything related to the protection of the interoceanic waterway must be submitted to the National Assembly and to a popular referendum, and therefore no “amendment, reservation or understanding” will be valid if it does not meet these requirements.
Among other considerations, the lawyer asserted that the government of José Raúl Mulino handed over part of the national territory and sovereignty over it to the US to please Trump.
In his opinion, the national and international political scenario has prevailed over the pressure from the Trump administration and Mulino’s submissiveness, but he asked the judiciary not to be indifferent to these abuses and to consider the historic struggle of the Panamanian people to recover the Canal.
He recalled a phrase from General Omar Torrijos who said “Our martyrs have already died by the bullet. Let them not die again by indifference.”
Source: Cuba en Resumen