This is CBS. I am the world. I'm John Batchel. The Panama Canal, a major global phenomenon, the building of the canal. Once upon a time it was the canal zone under the protection of and the possession of the United States of America having to do with

Teddy Roosevelt, Colombia, and a lot of towing and froing at the beginning of the 20th century.

However, now it is a sovereign state that was created out of a treaty and of guarantees in the late

20th century by the United States of America,

until Mary Anastasio Grady is the America's editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal editorial page.

And everybody's entitled to an opinion, I think it goes.

But facts, no.

Mary, a very good evening to you. The facts of the sovereignty of Panama.

In question after remarks by the President and the Secretary of State and others these last weeks.

The Panama Canal is a sovereign state. It has a president, President Molino, Jose Milino.

He's elected dutifully and it maintains the canal. It maintains the business that

maintains the canal and makes it available worldwide. Those are facts in your column. What is the,

what was the complaint by the Secretary of State because his first embassy overseas was

the Central America and I believe his first stop overseas was Central America, and I believe

his first stop was Panama City to talk with Mr. Molino. Good evening to you. Well, good evening,

John. Yes, Marco Rubio, the newly minted Secretary of State, went on a Central American tour,

and first stop was Panama City, as you mentioned, to talk to the president,

who is a center-right president and ally of the U.S. But ever since December, President Trump

has been tweeting on truth social and making statements about the canal and many of them being inaccurate. And I was disappointed to see

that Marco Rubio repeated that practice of sort of making things up to support the idea that the U.S.

needs to intervene in the Panama Canal. One of the things he did was he went to the Canal Zone. By the way,

I should stress to your listeners that the Panama Canal authority is independent of the government.

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