Portside

The Donald Trump administration has made it clear that the top two priorities of the US government are to weaken China and to strengthen Wall Street.

The small Central American nation of Panama has found itself at the center of Trump’s strategy.

In his inauguration speech on January 20, the US president falsely claimed that “China is operating the [Panama] canal”, and he insisted “we’re taking it back”. In a press conference two weeks before, Trump implied that he was willing to use military force to take over the canal if Panama refused to give the United States effective control.

On March 4, an agreement was announced in which a consortium led by the Wall Street giant BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, would buy the ports on both sides of the Panama Canal.

The Associated Press noted that this deal will be “effectively putting the ports under American control”.

BlackRock buys up the world

In a speech to the US Congress on March 4, Donald Trump boasted:

To further enhance our national security, my administration will be reclaiming the Panama Canal. And we’ve already started doing it.

Just today, a large American company announced they are buying both ports around the Panama Canal, and lots of other things having to do with the Panama Canal, and a couple of other canals.

Trump did not name the “large American company”, but it was BlackRock — leading a consortium that includes its subsidiary Global Infrastructure Partners.

BlackRock is the world’s biggest investment company. It managed a record high of $11.6 trillion in assets in the fourth quarter of 2024. (The top 500 investment managers on Earth together held $128 trillion in assets at the end of 2023.)

The Associated Press reported that the BlackRock-led consortium now controls at least 43 ports in 23 countries. The Wall Street giant’s subsidiary Global Infrastructure Partners was central to the US government-sponsored Partnership on Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGI), which was launched by the Joe Biden administration and the G7.

BlackRock’s billionaire CEO Larry Fink was invited to sit with Western heads of state at the G7 summit in Italy in 2024, where he called for “public-private partnerships” to help Wall Street firms buy up global infrastructure, especially in poor, formerly colonized countries.

BlackRock has enjoyed a very close relationship with the US government, under both Democrats and Republicans. Fink said before the US presidential election in November 2024 that it “really doesn’t matter” who wins, because both parties would benefit Wall Street.

Bloomberg reported that Fink personally called Trump and asked him to help BlackRock purchase the Panama Canal ports. The financial media outlet noted that the billionaire CEO bragged of BlackRock’s deep links with governments worldwide, stating, “We are increasingly the first call”.

As Yahoo News put it, “BlackRock’s Panama Canal deal is latest win for chief Larry Fink in strong start to Trump era”.

Trump’s billionaire-run administration

There are at least 13 billionaires in the Trump administration, including the president himself, as well as the richest oligarch on Earth, Elon Musk.

Musk spent at least $288 million funding the political campaigns of Trump and other far-right Republicans in the 2024 election, which made him the largest single donor in the United States, according to the Washington Post.

Another major donor to Trump’s 2024 campaign was Stephen Schwarzman, the billionaire CEO of Blackstone, the world’s biggest alternative asset manager. Schwarzman is one of the highest paid executives on Wall Street. He made $1.6 billion in salary and dividends in 2024 alone.

Blackstone is the largest landlord in the United States, owning more than 300,000 residential housing units.

Although they are separate financial services companies, BlackRock owns a 6.7% stake in Blackstone.

BlackRock also manages the biggest Bitcoin fund on Earth. In late February, BlackRock added its bitcoin ETF to its model portfolios. A few days later, Trump announced that his administration will create a “Crypto Strategic Reserve”, so the US government can effectively backstop bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, to prevent their price from drastically falling, thereby reducing volatility and benefiting massive institutional investors on Wall Street.

Targeting China, Marco Rubio seeks to impose colonial Monroe Doctrine in Latin America

To run the US State Department, Donald Trump selected war hawk Marco Rubio, a hard-line neoconservative who is closely allied with the Latin American right wing.

Rubio’s first trip abroad as secretary of state was to Panama, where he threatened the Central American nation over its relations with China.

The Trump administration demanded that the Panamanian government force the Hong Kong-based company CK Hutchison Holdings to sell its stake in the ports surrounding the canal.

Immediately after Rubio’s trip, Panama withdrew from China’s global infrastructure program, the Belt and Road Initiative.

In an interview with Fox News on February 26, Rubio and the conservative host Brian Kilmeade used colonial rhetoric, referring to Latin America as the “backyard” of the United States:

BRIAN KILMEADE: Have we allowed, over decades, China to make their way into Central and South America, and is Panama an example of that?

MARCO RUBIO: Yes.

BRIAN KILMEADE: We’ve just not put enough attention in our own backyard. Is that what you heard when you went there?

MARCO RUBIO: It is.

…

And I’m very happy that, after our visit, I think the same day I was there, Panama became the first country in Latin America, in the Western Hemisphere, to get out of the Belt and Road initiative.

And I think there will be more news coming up soon, with regards to Panama, all positive for [North] America.

After his trip to Panama, Secretary of State Rubio traveled to El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and the Dominican Republic.

The Trump administration has sought to revive the 202-year-old colonial Monroe Doctrine, threatening countries in Latin America and across the western hemisphere, treating the region as the US imperial “sphere of influence”.

During Trump’s first term, multiple US officials invoked the Monroe Doctrine to justify aggressive meddling and coup attempts in Latin America, including neoconservative National Security Advisor John Bolton and CIA Director turned Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

US officials have frequently violated the independence and sovereignty of countries in Latin America. Today, Washington is essentially ordering them to cut their ties with China — which is the largest trading partner of the region, excluding Mexico.

Rubio has constantly demonized China as the biggest so-called “threat” to the United States.

In his Senate confirmation hearing in January (in which 99 of the 100 members voted to confirm him), Rubio said (emphasis added):

The Communist Party of China, that leads the PRC, is the most potent and dangerous near-peer adversary this nation has ever confronted. They have elements that the Soviet Union never possessed. They are a technological adversary and competitor, an industrial competitor, an economic competitor, a geopolitical competitor, a scientific competitor now — in every realm.

It’s an extraordinary challenge. It’s one that I believe will define the 21st century. When they write the book about the 21st century, there’s going to be some chapters in there about Putin; there’s going to be some chapters in there about some of these other places; but the bulk of that book about the 21st century will be not just about China, but about the relationship between China and the United States, and what direction it went.

In the February interview with Fox News, Rubio made similar comments, fearmongering about China:

BRIAN KILMEADE: You’ve called China the most dangerous near-peer adversary the US has faced.

MARCO RUBIO: Ever!

BRIAN KILMEADE: So we need concrete steps to face off with them

MARCO RUBIO: Yeah.

BRIAN KILMEADE: Who clearly are building up their military to face off with us.

MARCO RUBIO: Yes.

Rubio argued that the US government needs to re-industrialize, invest heavily in military industries, and remove China from supply chains in order to prepare for a potential war in the future.

Ben Norton is a journalist, writer, and filmmaker. He is the founder and editor of Geopolitical Economy Report, and is based in China.