Quote:Mulino in a message posted to X on Wednesday, rejected that the deal came about because of U.S. pressure. “I reject in the name of Panama and all Panamanians this new affront to the truth and our dignity as a nation,” he wrote. He accused Trump of “lying again.”
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“Cooperation between our governments passes through clear understandings in terms of issues of mutual interest,” Mulino wrote. “It doesn’t have anything to do with ‘reclaiming the canal’ nor with tarnishing our national sovereignty.”

In a filing, CK Hutchison Holding said Tuesday that it would sell all shares in Hutchison Port Holdings and in Hutchison Port Group Holdings to the BlackRock consortium in a deal valued at nearly $23 billion, including $5 billion in debt.
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Frank Sixt, co-managing director of CK Hutchison, said in a statement that the transaction was “the result of a rapid, discrete but competitive process in which numerous bids and expressions of interest were received.”

“I would like to stress that the transaction is purely commercial in nature and wholly unrelated to recent political news reports concerning the Panama Ports,” Sixt said.