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PANAMA CITY (Reuters) - Panama's President Jose Raul Mulino said on Thursday that he didn't place any value on reports the U.S. military is looking into options for ensuring full U.S. access to the Panama Canal, since these reports came from unnamed sources.
"If no one puts their name to such an assertion, I don't ascribe any value to it," he told a press conference.
Two U.S. officials, speaking anonymously, told Reuters last week that the Pentagon had been instructed to evaluate options, amid President Donald Trump's repeated assertion he wants to "take back" the key global shipping route in Panama.
Trump had claimed the canal's toll charges were too high and that it was being controlled by China, without providing any evidence. Mulino has rejected both assertions, saying the waterway is managed in a fair and transparent way.
The canal is controlled by the Panama Canal Authority, a Panama government agency, but Hong Kong-based firm CK Hutchison has held concessions to operate two ports on either end of the canal.
Earlier this month, CK Hutchison said it had agreed to sell most of its global $22.8 billion ports business, including assets in Panama to a group led by U.S. investment firm BlackRock, even as Hong Kong's city leader accused foreign governments of "bullying tactics."
"As of what I know this morning, the deal is advancing slowly," Mulino said at the conference.
He added he was meeting with the head of the Panama Canal Authority soon to discuss major ports projects in the region and Panama's potential involvement in Trans-Pacific shipping, and would travel to Houston, Texas, at the end of May where he would meet with important players in the shipping business.
Mulino told reporters the logistics of a "reverse flow" of migrants forced to head south from the United States was "under control" and that he would meet Colombian President Gustavo Petro next Friday to discuss the shared border.
(Reporting by Elida Moreno and Sarah Morland; Editing by Daina Beth Solomon, Chizu Nomiyama, Alexandra Hudson)
