Joining me now is the defense secretary Pete Higgst.

Mr. Secretary, thank you for being with us today.

Hey, Will.

Thanks for having me.

Talk to me about this, you bet.

Always happy to have you here.

Talk to us about this memorandum of understanding, this trip you just made to Panama, and the

update you gave the president.

Tell us what it means to be first and free through the canal.

Yeah, Will, you got it right.

This is about malign Chinese influence.

This is a power play by the Chinese in our backyard on what in the military we call key terrain.

The Panama Canal is strategic key terrain.

You mentioned the 40% are U.S. ships.

Well, 75% of the traffic that goes through the

Panama Canal either originates from or is going to a U.S. port. And you mentioned the history

there of our investment. This is something we've been involved in for quite some time. And so we

had a chance to go down there with a large group of U.S. soldiers and ships and others to meet

with their leadership and say, we want to help you remove Chinese influence. And thankfully,

the leadership of Panama are eagerly pro-American. And they've demonstrated already. They kicked

out the Belt and Road initiative when Secretary of State Rubio was there a few months ago.

They did an audit on the control of those Chinese ports, which unsubscribed, unsurprisingly,

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