The US is trying to bring global ports under western control, as Beijing appears to be dead underwater. Trump’s fierce, China quietly shut down its plans. They will explain in detail how they did so, but at first it is the background of the relay.
In March, Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison Holdings announced that it had sold all overseas ports, including the two Panama Canal, to a consortium led by BlackRock in transactions worth $23 billion. BlackRock was to control the two in Panama, but the Italian tycoon and the Control Edge Mediterranean shipping company controlled the others.
It was sold as a major victory for Washington on the geopolitical chess committee. This allows the US to raise or reject prices for Chinese ships, militarize ports, and enact China’s maritime blockade at key choke points.
In his inaugural speech, President Donald Trump said of the Panama Canal, “We will pass it to Panama and we will get it back.”
Well, it’s okay. However, on July 27th, no one was able to get a meaningless expiration date for the dotted line, and the transaction was passed.
It saw Beijing put pressure on Hutchison while the Trump administration was colluding with the takeover consortium, but said the two could play in that game. Beijing responded by launching a regulatory review of the transaction – the Altocho base is in Hong Kong and has direct Chinese assets involved in Sarasara – and said the transaction should not be blocked without approval. If that warning wasn’t clear enough, the family of Li Ka-Shing, founder of Hutchison, a Ninett 6-Yar billionaire who was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 2000, saw the ES business empire under pressure. From Bloomberg:
Younger was Richard’s discussion to export his insurance business to mainland China, and it has stagnated after port contracts disrupt Beijing, Bloomberg reported earlier this month. That follows another Bloomberg report in March, China has told state-owned companies to refrain from new collaborations with companies associated with the LI family.
The port contract is now completely surrounded by ongoing trade and other tensions between Beijing and Washington. It’s a game that even Politico admits that the US is losing.
Panama wasn’t in 1989. There is no Noriega to exile. There is no Cold War to meet. Today, China is funding the project. China will build rails. China will move its position. (5/11)
-WilliamHuo (@wmhuo168) July 29, 2025
It was the depths of his fantasy that Trump revised in Panama. He thinks he is Machiavelli. In reality, I am set to fail a landlord who attempts to evict China from the global trade routes that I already own. (10/11)
-WilliamHuo (@wmhuo168) July 29, 2025
What now?
China seems to be following that path. This is Bloomberg:
CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd. said it may invite “major strategic investors” from China to join groups seeking to buy global ports as the Hong Kong-based company works towards a solution aimed at everything in geopolitical sensitive transactions.
Unnamed investors will join as key members of the consortium, the company said on stock exchange Philing on Monday hours after hours of a 145-day exclusive talk window with a group backed by American asset manager Black Black Inc.
Will Trump try to sell it as a big victory to “recapture” the Panama Canal? He may have to wait a while, but I think so.
Lau Siu Kai, a consultant with the Associate-Dedicated China Association of Hong Kong and Macau Research think tanks, administered the South China Morning Post, hoping that the deadline for dealings would be extended with the possibility of joining a potential consortium with China’s China-owned Enterprise Cosco Cosco Naval Corporation, which is owned by China.
The bottom row means that if China opposes the transaction, it is “highly likely to be turned off.”
“If COSCO has submates of ownership and decision-making power in the port’s future operations, it will lend a fair measure of Chinese occupational and shipping companies and that they are not discriminating against China’s light,” Lau said.
Or, as Bloomberg says:
Quiddy Advisors analyst David Blennerhassett says despite Cosco Estrers The Discussions, the challenges remain. It could reverse current rhetoric and confuse Trump.
no doubt. Cosco joined the consortium to disappoint the WOE purpose of the deal that Washington supported. This is the Hong Kong and Macau office of the State Council of China that made a strong comment on the issue a few months ago. It is difficult to oppose the argument that adopted state power through state power, pressure and incentives – so is the legitimate rights and interests of other countries. Details are as follows:
The Panama Channel has been “Americanized” and “politicized.” The United States has undoubtedly used it for political purposes to advance its own political agenda, with China’s transport and trade inevitably being dominated by the United States. If the US implements measures such as selective capacity limitations and impossible “political searches,” logistics costs and supply chain stability for Chinese companies will face significant risks. Subnetizen also noted that this would curb China, increase Chinese freight costs and narrow the market share of Chinese shipping companies.
Furthermore, the transaction creates a major gap in the port networks that Chinese companies have built over the years, allowing American interests to erode the benefits of overseas development. Other netizens have pointed out that the US could use the transaction as a “template” to trigger a wave of port mergers and acquisitions around the world.
This is by no means just a horror. According to a draft executive order from the US government, plans are already underway to charge special docking fees for Chinese vessels, and the US has urged allies to take similar steps, otherwise facing retaliation. If all the US calculated moves are successful, they will undoubtedly affect China’s shipbuilding, shipping and foreign centers, threatening and undermining the normal global order and safety of delivery and trade.
So it’s surprising that Beijing threw that weight to sign a deal. Western media has had the noise that Beijing may need to do so using heavy means. Reuters said Beijing could use extraterritorial jurisdiction by applying anti-mass laws. Another option, according to Reuters, was the 2020 National Security Act, chasing “terrorism,” destroyers, separatists and co-conspirators with foreign forces. “
In the end, China didn’t even have to do more moles than lifts. If China was forced to go on a robust route, it was expected that the US would be the global position of the Hong Kong Financial Centre to portray Beijing as unfriendly to external business interests.
Of course, there are still such kinds of claims:
xi’s China is not a market. CK Hutichison, begging CCP-approved investors, shows how far the business must crawl to supply XI’s full control paranoia.
-JayT (@jay83214566) July 28, 2025
I don’t know how such claims are densely packed with BlackRock CEO Larry Fink over the deal, the entire Tik Tok Saga, and other examples, but what do I know?
However, investors are pumped up by the potential inclusion of COSCO. From Bloomberg:
Investors are rethinking their enthusiasm for CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd. Listen to the delay in the company’s plans to sell 43 ports. Optimism was the purpose of the news that the Chinese shipping giant was entering global trading.
CK Hutchison’s shares have swayed between profits and losses since the company first announced its deal on March 4th.
This puts the Trump administration in a position to try and swim upstream against the interests of research, logistics and simple logic.
The Singaporean Prime Minister laid it out.
He knows the United States that abandoned the multilateral training system based on the wealth of Singaporeans.
In this episode of confusion, there is only one stable force with the weight of multilateral trade. It’s China. https://t.co/zb0szneozq
– Warwick Powell | Mihaosan (@baoshaoshan) April 5, 2025
Does Washington accept reality? If recent history is any indication, it is unlikely.
And there are many other ways the US can try to shake things up and burn things at Maritime chokepoint to improve its negotiating position with Beijing.
Trump continues to bomb Somalia and is doing bad things. Meanwhile, Somaliland, which declared independence from Somalia in 1991, currently offers a military base at the gateway of the network, treating critical celebrity whether the US would pick it up as a nation. It is also recommended by Project 2025, claiming that the Somaliland state is “a perception of the Somaliland state as a hedge against the US’s worsening position in Djibouti.”
That position on Djibouti is, of course, almost everything about China.
At the Cape of Hope, the US is in the midst of a pressure campaign in South Africa, where it looks to a naval base. Just recently, the House Foreign Affairs Committee passed a bipartisan (!) law that directed the president to assess whether South Africa undermines US national security or foreign poly purposes.
It was also the fact that the US Southern Command had a closer affiliated with Panama security forces, and of course only created plans for the Panama Channel when they were poor. Will the failure of Hutchinson’s deal and the US’ inability to effectively force Beijing make it more likely that the US will experience such a threat? I think we have to wait and see.
