CNN One Thing

Donald Trump is less than a week away from being sworn in as president for the second time. But even before the White House, movers can finish moving Trump in and President Biden out, there is a lot happening in and around Washington.

If it had been a sexual assault that would be disqualifying to be a secretary of defense, wouldn't it?

That was a false claim. So you talking about a hypothetical.

So you can't tell me whether someone who has committed a sexual assault is disqualified from being secretary of defense?

Senator, I know in my instance and I'm talking about my instance only it was a false claim.

On Tuesday, Pete Hegseth, Trump's pick to lead the Defense Department, got tough questions at his confirmation hearing about his drinking and sexual assault allegations, which he has denied, as well as his views about women and LGBTQ members of the military.

I respect every single female service member that has put on the uniform past and present My critiques, Senator, recently and in the past and from personal experience have been instances where I've seen standards lowered, and.

At least 12 of Trump's other Cabinet nominees are scheduled to be questioned this week. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden is saying his goodbyes after more than 50 years of public service. He's giving a big farewell address from the Oval Office on Wednesday night and on Monday at the State Department. He highlighted his administration's foreign policy achievements.

My administration is leaving the next administration with a very strong hand to play, and we're leaving now an America more friends.

But Trump has been doing his own unofficial foreign policy work, mostly on social media, which has officials in multiple countries rattled.

There's video today of President elect Trump's son, don junior, arriving in Greenland.

Don jr strip comes right as his dad, the president elect has reiterated he wants Greenland to become a u.s. territory.

As you might expect, late night hosts like Stephen colbert had some fun with this.

There are so many reasons this is insane. One being it's crazy. Another being that Greenland already has a daddy and it's Denmark and they're not looking to sell.

But some experts say this is really not a laughing matter.

Trump has been publicly talking about Greenland for five years. It wasn't a joke. And today, in a matter of minutes, President elect Trump spoke about three land grabs Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal.

Giving the Panama Canal to Panama was a very big mistake.

What's different here is that at a recent news conference, Trump did not rule out using economic or military force to take control of Greenland or the canal.

I'm not going to commit to that now. It might it might be that he'll have to do something. Look, the Panama Canal is vital to our country.

So if we should take these threats seriously, it's important to look at how realistic they actually are and how the people in these countries actually feel about it. I guess the CNN chief domestic correspondent, Phil Mattingly, he's been talking to Panamanians about the complicated history of U.S. involvement in the Panama Canal as they try to figure out what Trump really wants from it. From CNN, this is One Thing, I'm david Rind.

So, Phil, where are you right now?

I am in Panama. As a matter of fact, I came down here a few days ago and wasn't necessarily a place I expected to be coming, particularly just a few days before inauguration when all the confirmation hearings are about to heat up. But, you know, the president elect, he keeps your head on, swivel a little bit.

Yeah, You're in Panama. I'm in my closet. We are not the same. I do want to start with those confirmation hearings. They'll fail because most incoming presidents don't usually have much trouble getting their cabinet nominees confirmed. And I think we expect the same thing here, give or take. So I guess I'm wondering, are any of these nominees going to be asked about whether they would support taking over the Panama Canal, as Trump has suggested?

'Yes. Yes. And that's what if you are a regular human being who doesn't live in the world that you and I live in. Why these hearings matter is you want to understand where these point people on all of these critical issues for the American people stand, given the fact that there's not always a lot of explanation behind what the president elect, soon to be president puts on his social media accounts, If you are Marco Rubio, who is a well-respected, has the resume, he's kind of one of the picks that is more traditional to be secretary of state. One of the first questions he will be asked will be, do you plan to invade Panama in order to retake the Panama Canal? Along with that, are you really planning to make Canada the 51st state? And do you have deal terms that you'd like to throw out there to buy Greenland? We kind of laugh and scoff and try and figure out if there's anything behind this. But I think what Rubio's challenge will be and I think the importance of these hearings on these issues specifically are he's going to need to flesh out the actual policy kind of levers here that Trump is going for to the extent they exist. And I think down here in Panama. What's been fascinating, having spent 4 or 5 days talking to government officials, talking to local officials, talking to Canal administration officials, is no one knows. No one has any idea what the actual goal is behind kind of this barrage of attacks on the Panama Canal that we've seen from the president elect over the last couple of weeks.

Well, so can you give us like some perspective on the Panama Canal specifically, because unlike Greenland, like this was once under U.S. control. Right.

It was an two piece of this that I think are really important.

It was the biggest ditch of the 20th century.

One the history of the actual agreement itself.

For President Theodore Roosevelt, it was a major step in his vision of making the United States a global power. Roosevelt's only problem was that Panama belonged to Colombia, so he backed a rebellion which led to Panama's independence.

Canal's, 110 years old, led by Teddy Roosevelt after the Lesseps and the French failed catastrophically to the tune of tens of thousands of lives. Not mostly French lives, mostly indigenous people lives, and the lives of those and surrounding parts of Central America. They came to work on it. They failed. They were able to kind of rescue themselves from bankruptcy by selling off all of their equipment to the United States. The United States, through its engineering team and one of the seventh manmade Wonders of the world type deal, was able to figure out this remarkable lock system which allowed the building of a canal to actually occur, connecting the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean through the isthmus of Panama. And having just spent all day there today. It's remarkable to watch, in effect, this feat of engineering that happened 110 years ago.

The United States offered Panama a deal.

What came out was a treaty in which the United States got much more than it had hoped for, ten miles wide, almost complete power within the zone.

Now, the United States, as part of that process, had the rights to not just the canal, but what was known as the Canal zone. There was a large kind of a zone where American military bases American diplomats, the operational side of the canal. Panamanians were not allowed into this zone unless they had specific clearance. So it was basically inside their country. It wasn't just the canal. It was a very significant space within the country around the canal where the Panamanians did not have sovereignty. Essentially.

In 1964, serious rioting broke out over whether Panama's flag should be flown in the zone.

There was a now a famous revolt of some scale at a place called Balboa High School, which was inside the zone. There was a requirement that both countries flags needed to be raised at all times. It was a requirement put in place by John F Kennedy and the students about the high school, which are mostly Americans, were mostly kind of diplomats, kids. Some of the wealthier Panamanians were there as well. Only put up the American flag. There was a protest that began 21, I believe Panamanians lost their lives in the push back to that protest, which really became kind of the animating feature of the protest movement.

The picture of the United States as an oppressive colonial ruler was not appealing. The U.S. government began to rethink the importance of possessing the canal. At 1977, President Carter signed the treaties, handing the canal back to Panama.

And by the way, the convergence of of history in this moment is remarkable in the sense that Jimmy Carter just passed away. Yeah, Ronald Reagan just destroyed Carter politically in the 1980 election on this issue, mirroring very much kind of the tone and tenor that we've heard from Trump.

The Panama Canal Zone is sovereign United States territory just as much as Alaska is, as well as the states carved from the Louisiana Purchase. We bought it. We paid for it. And General Torrijos should be told we.

Are going to keep it. Now, Reagan, when he took office, changed his tune, and one of his advisers famously said, well, he actually learned the facts. And that's why a treaty led to a 20 year handover process.

This is indeed an historic occasion. Perhaps one of the most significant that has ever.

Occurred in this hemisphere. And in 1999, there was the official handover to Panama. Operations of the canal, also the canal zone shuttered as well. All the US citizens who live there, the military bases that the U.S. forces that were on the ground here, they all departed. And since that time it's been run by Panama. Since that time, there's a neutrality agreement that is in place. No country gets special favors, is operated like a business. It's $2 billion in revenue back to a Panamanian government. Last fiscal year, the only kind of caveat to that is US naval vessels are allowed to get priority to go through. They still pay the same rates. But other than that, there's no special treatment for anybody.

Well, yeah, that's what I wanted to ask because it seems like that is the heart of Trump's argument here, that U.S. ships are getting a raw deal. Is that actually true, though?

The social media posts that we got from the president elect was U.S. ships are being harmed. They're paying higher rates than anybody else.

They don't treat us fairly. They charge more for our ships than they charge for ships of other countries.

That's not true that the US Navy is being harmed. They still have the same priority they were given in the agreement and that Americans died building it.

We lost 38,000 people. Think of it 38,000 people. They died from malaria mosquitoes.

That's not even remotely close to true. Tens of thousands of people died. Very few of them were actually Americans because they were mostly on the engineering team. There were still Americans to die. There's disease. There's all sorts of issues here. But the bulk of them were people from surrounding countries in Central America.

China's basically taken it over. China's at both ends of the Panama Canal. China is running the Panama Canal.

And that the Chinese are operating the canal to the point where there are actually Chinese soldiers in the canal.

How long have you worked here?

For 20 years. Yeah, I'll be 21st January 19th.

How much is a change?

Well. A lot has been more modern now.

I have been in the canal for the better part of the last 4 or 5 days. There are no Chinese soldiers that I saw. We looked in cabinets and in closets and everything. We couldn't find any.

You see, everybody's Panamanian here..

Is that a secret Chinese soldier who's buried in that, yeah....

And while there are very significant national security concerns about Beijing's influence in Latin America, which has grown dramatically over the course of the last couple of decades in Panama, what's most fascinating is the last two administrations, including the current president, President Molino, who was inaugurated in the middle of last year, have been very clearly far more interested in their U.S. alliance than they have been in the Beijing alliance. There have been no major Belt and road investments. There have been no kind of open doorways to Beijing in the way they had been maybe 10 or 15 years ago. And so the concerns are legitimate because this is obviously such a critical waterway, but they're not nearly as dramatic as they were ten years ago.

It seems like the Panamanians realize what a key ally the U.S. is and wouldn't want to piss them off in any way. That would get kind of a reaction similar to what we've seen from Trump.

They have done everything, particularly under President Molino. I'll give you some context. There was this massive front page Wall Street Journal story where it's all about President Merlino making clear that he was ready to do whatever was necessary and needed from the next U.S. administration to stop migration through the Darién gap, which has been this kind of fulcrum like lynchpin of a lot of the migration before this horrific journey that has now become more commonplace and tens of thousands of people have gone through it. And the president of Panama is going out of his way to make clear and a very clear signal to the Trump administration and an actual action that was taken with the Biden administration. Whatever you need, we are willing to do. We will help in any way we can. Thinking this is the most important issue for the president elect. This is the way to reach him. And so when you talk to people here to kind of to your point, all they're saying is like, why is this happening right now? And it's a valid question that I certainly don't have an answer for.

Yeah. I was going to say, what is their reaction? But it sounds like their reaction is pretty much all of our reactions when we saw the initial tweet and the subsequent statements from Trump.

Yeah. What's fascinating is they are very cognizant and I've heard this several times from diplomatic officials of as opposed to taking seriously the idea of like a potential invasion or anything like that. They also aren't laughing it off. What they're trying to figure out is what he really wants. And they're open to trying to figure out a way to get him what he needs. They would just like somebody to tell them.

Okay. So, Phil, I think a lot of us learn about the Panama Canal in grade school and maybe pretend to know how it actually works when we grow up. But for someone who has seen it up close, what does it actually look like and how important is it to the global shipping industry?

So, David, the craziest thing was, you know, the Panama Canal was a tourist stop.

Panama is a Paradise...Unless your job is to cut through it.

There's literally a Morgan Freeman Imax movie where when you walk in, it's like this huge poster of Morgan Freeman.

What once seemed impossible is today a wonder of the world.

And as a concession stand and there's the gear you can buy. There's hats and maps and all that stuff. And so we walked in the first day. We've been over there a couple of times, and there's literally like stands like a high school football game. And you watch the ships come in and go through the locks and there's an announcer that's like announcing every step of the process. And it's not like a short process. It's like a process to go through these locks. And so once you've seen it, once you're like, all right, cool. Like, that's that's how it is. Well, we went back today and huge credit to the Canal Authority that gave us all this access. They let us through into the locks. And so those gates, like the ships, stops at one of the gates and then all of a sudden they drain all the water out of that gate and make the ship essentially, even with if you're coming from the Atlantic to the Pacific, even with the Pacific entryway, and then they'll fill it back up.

It's like a ladder for boats.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. You're using like a water ladder. I mean, it's literally like it's a combination of something like the equivalent of 70 Olympic swimming pools of water each single time to do it. And so you're watching these I mean, these are massive ships like this. One of the ships that we're at today, we're standing on the gate. This massive ship is sitting in front of us. It was called The Spirit of Auckland, and it is the equivalent lengthwise of a 68 story building. It pulls in in the shadow as it's pulling in completely covers all of the grandstand and all the locks or anything like that. And you're sitting there. There is maybe five feet of space between the ship and the edge on each side, and it's being pulled by these things called mules. They're not actual mules. Is like the electronic train system. And like watching this thing work and the fact that it's the same system that was created 110 years ago is just remarkable in the moment because you're sitting there like, I don't understand how A, this was built out of absolutely nothing. And then the most jarring thing about it is you realize that actually about three football fields away up a hill is a new canal that was built, and it's called the canal expansion. That's for larger ships. And that was built these vessels, 2012, the turn 16, and it was built entirely via Panamanian money. And now that is actually the main revenue driver for the canal system right now. So my kind of funny question that I would ask everybody I'm talking to here is like, okay, so when we take this back over, do we get the new one too? Or do we just get the old one and they laugh and they're in on the joke and I say stuff. But there's also a level of like, you know, you get it. Like this wasn't all you like. We actually built the bigger one that's creating more revenue and doing and bigger ships and more containers and more tonnage that's coming through. We did our own with our own money and we didn't need your help. And so like, maybe back off. You're like, okay, I get it.

Like this is a treaty crafted in the 1970s. Like there's tons that have happened. New Canal Belt, climate change is impacting things, right? So it's like a whole new ballgame, right?

And so, like the difficulties that they have to run a business here, which they've run very successfully for 20 plus years and you throw this into it and I think they're sitting here like, you got to be kidding me right now. Like the days that end and why are hard enough? Why are we dealing with this as well?

And there's a history, too, right, for the Panamanians of this kind of us influence decisions made without their input. Some people saw the the original Panama Canal set up as as kind of like an invasion of sorts. And they don't want to see something like that again, right?

Yeah. The the kind of the echoes of imperialism here, it it's it's real. And I would urge people to not ignore it. Well, there are many different splits politically, domestically, about all sorts of different issues. The one unifying issue in this country I had somebody tell me this today was that like you start talking about the Panama Canal and you start talking about U.S. influence in the Panama Canal. And he literally slapped his hands together and he was like, we all come together immediately. There is a united front on this issue. And I think that the protest of Balboa that ended up that lead for nearly two dozen Panamanians, the anniversary of that was four days ago was January 9th. And President Molina was literally putting a wreath at Balboa High School. Like if you drive along the streets here, there are murals remembering what happened in the 60s about the high school and what happened in the push to ensure the U.S. actually handed over the Panama Canal. That is a central kind of point of being and purpose here. And I think that the concern that you hear from public officials about the current posture from the president elect is you don't want our people to get riled up to the point where they view that as the forthcoming policy of this administration, not because they think they can do anything about it. There's no the Constitution doesn't allow an actual military here. But because like burning of flags, protests in the streets, that type of stuff, it is not that far away if you keep pushing down this path. And I think that potential for unrest is very concerning here from public officials.

Right. Right. It's great context. Well, I really appreciate it. Thank you.

Thanks, man. Appreciate it.

One thing is a production of CNN Audio. This episode was produced by Paola Ortiz and me, David Rind. Our senior producers are Felicia Patinkin and Faiz Jamil. Matt Dempsey is our production manager. Dan Dzula is our technical director and Steve Lickteig is the executive producer of CNN Audio. We get support from Haley Thomas, Alex Manasseri, Robert Mathers, John Dianora, Leni Steinhart, Jamus Andrest, Nichole Pesaru and Lisa Namerow. Special thanks to Wendy Brundage and Katie Hinman. As always, if you like the show, you can let us know by leaving a rating or a review wherever you listen, make sure you follow the show so you don't miss an episode. We'll be back on Sunday. I'll talk to you then.