As Trump fantasises about "taking the Panama Canal back," a Danish company just bought the railways beside it.
Last week, hours before Trump decided to upend the US-designed international trade system by asking a GPT how to tax penguins, the Financial Times broke a far less-covered, but equally conspicuous, news.
Danish shipping powerhouse Mærsk bought the railroad running along the Panama Canal, the artificial waterway connecting the Caribbean Sea with the Pacific Ocean, from an American company.
The move adds another dimension to the ongoing ménage à trois between the US, Panama, and the Kingdom of Denmark.
The new US administration has made no secret of its expansionist dreams of bringing both Greenland, an autonomous territory under Denmark, and the Panama Canal into the American domain.
Two weeks ago, first in the US line of succession, JD Vance paid a visit to Greenland to remind locals and the world that Washington still has its eyes on the Arctic island.
Today, Trump sent his defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, to Panama to try to sweet-talk the country, which has owned its canal since Jimmy Carter – America’s 39th president. For reference, Trump is number 47.
He may give it a shot, but the reality is that the 76-km railway, long an American legacy asset, slipped out of North American fingers last week, when it was sold by US-Canadian owners to APM Terminals, the ports arm of the Danish shipping giant Mærsk.
No fanfare. No veto. Not even a Trump post on Truth Social. Yet.
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