The Panamanian leader José Raúl Mulino announced that it has decided to leave China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which is a mega program involving infrastructure and investments.

• The latest move comes following pressure from the United States, with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio referring to several concerns over China’s rise in the Panama Canal region.
• Rubio told Mulino that Trump believed that China’s presence in the canal area may violate a treaty that led the United States to turn the waterway over to Panama in 1999.
• That treaty calls for the permanent neutrality of the American-built canal.