This is the Friends of History Debating Society. I'm John Bachelor. Michael Jan is here.

It's been several weeks since I've had a chance to speak with Michael about what he's seen in

his travels in Central America. He's now in Panama City. Michael's been visiting Panama City since at least

2021 and at the end of the pandemic and into the recovery and now into clearly a recessionary environment for Panama, a destabilizing recessionary

environment.

There is a drought.

The lake that feeds the canals is dramatically lower. The drought has led to the canal traffic dropping

dramatically, melodramatically, profoundly. It's also led to the requirement that the freight coming through has to be offloaded so that the

ship can only carry so much weight through the canal because of the reduced water.

At the same time, there's a presidential contest this year, 2024.

The current chief executive has a blood disease.

He is not running for office, to my knowledge. The former president Martinelli

is the leading candidate in the polls. He is also not only under indictment under

sentence for corruption, I think years in prison but he's staying

out for now for his appeals at the same time 5% of the budget of Panama remember the

drop in canal traffic means to drop in the budget

profoundly but there's 5% of the budget depends on a copper mine that is now frozen

stopped because of a worker dispute and we have the Darien Gap, 520,000 people coming through, some of whom

stay in Panama City. None of these things make Panama stronger.

So Michael, what you're seeing right now is a city and a country that's very fragile.

Are the Chinese in the streets in Panama City?

Oh yeah, Chinese are all over the place.

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