I'm John Dotswood, Professor Aved Ellis, U.S. Army War College.

This is the New World Report, Central America, Panama, the Isthmus of Panama.

The story is extremely romantic, from the French attempt to build the canal to the Teddy Roosevelt triumph in the

beginning of the 20th century, to the concerns of the vulnerability of the Panama Canal to

bad actors such as Imperial Japan and now Chinese Communist Party, China.

However, Panama has a story to tell of independence since the end of the 20th century, and it's come under review by the Trump administration. That was solved.

Larry Fink heading BlackRock suddenly makes phone calls and acquires two ports, one at either end of

the canal, owned by a man named Lee out of Hong Kong, a billionaire, a very clever man.

That made them appear to be vulnerable to Chinese Communist Party interference. So now BlackRock owns

them. No problem, except suddenly the announcement out of the mainland that the party is

unhappy with this, perhaps that it wasn't consulted. Perhaps Lee and Hong Kong is now going to reel a deal in. I don't

have those details. I do know that Black Rock doesn't make arbitrary statements. So when it says

that it bid nearly $23 billion for Lee's port facilities, I believe it. However, Professor,

this deal now looks to be geopolitics and not financing. Is that a way to interpret it? And where does President Molino go? He's caught between

two giants. First of all, the Black Rock deal, which I understand involves ports not only in Panama, but as many as

43 different countries, this, you know, almost a $23 billion deal. It is understandably of concern

to the PRC because it really involves China's exposure to the global maritime logistics system more broadly.

It involves ports in Mexico and Lazaro Cardenas and in Veracruz.

It involves ports very close to the U.S. that could be of military value to the PRC in the Bahamas,

it involves ports in other parts of the world.

And so on the one hand, I think there's understandably concern.

And indeed, my understanding is that the current delegation of the PRC, which is in Panama,

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