The U.S. helped engineer Panama's independence from Colombia to build the canal, which opened in 1914. But it ceded control to Panama in 1999.

China does not manage the canal. Trump’s complaints on that relate to Panama having renewed, in 2022, a longstanding arrangement with a Hong Kong-based company to manage the two ports of entry to the canal. (The renewed deal has also recently drawn some ire in Congress.)

The president-elect on Sunday intimated that he wanted to retake control of the waterway from the Central American nation.