"American Consortium’s Purchase of Hong Kong-Owned Port Terminals Has Implications Far Beyond Panama" - by CWP alum Isaac Kardon
SYNOPSIS
The announcement that the American consortium BlackRock will be buying Hong Kong CK Hutchison’s port operations business has been heralded as a success in support of President Donald Trump’s bid to regain dominance over the Panama Canal. However, the implications are much wider than that as the purchase will reorder global maritime infrastructure, trigger a sea change in the US-China rivalry, and set a dire precedent of consequence for other small states.
COMMENTARY
On 4 March 2025, a consortium led by American private equity firm BlackRock announced an agreement to buy the overseas ports business owned and operated by Hong Kong conglomerate CK Hutchison. The headline-grabbing part of this deal was the acquisition of port terminals on the Pacific and Atlantic sides of the Panama Canal. All the attention was on US president Donald Trump, who had in his inauguration speech said of the canal: “We’re taking it back.” On 4 March, the president took credit for “reclaiming the Panama Canal” from alleged Chinese control in a speech before a joint session of Congress that same evening — “We didn’t give it to China, we gave it to Panama, and we’re taking it back.”
John Bradford, Isaac Kardon - 10 March 2025
Isaac Kardon is a senior fellow for China Studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and an adjunct professor at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University.
Photo Credit: https://pixabay.com/users/spalla67-16041978/
