The arrival today in Panama of U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, amid threats by President Donald Trump to retake the Canal, focused on the week that ends here today.

According to the State Department’s note, the head of US diplomacy will travel to Panama, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and the Dominican Republic from February 1 to 6 to promote the Republican magnate’s “America First” foreign policy.

Secretary Rubio’s participation with senior officials and business leaders will promote regional cooperation in our essential and common interests: stopping illegal and large-scale migration, fighting the scourge of transnational criminal organizations and drug traffickers, countering China, and deepening economic partnerships to improve prosperity in our hemisphere, the official statement said.

However, for the popular movements, Rubio is persona non grata here, an expression that is tangible in the planting of flags and street demonstrations throughout the isthmus to repudiate the threats to national sovereignty and the interoceanic waterway, administration achieved in 1999 thanks to the Torrijos-Carter agreements of 1977.

According to the coordinator of the National Front in Defense of Economic and Social Rights (Frenadeso), Jorge Guzmán, the fact that the United States built the Canal between 1904 and 1914 does not give it the authority to be its property in perpetuity, it is our territory and it is the main asset, and we demand that the Trump administration respect international treaties and the self-determination of the nations, he said.