TruthJihad.com and PressTV.ir (The first part of the above video covers anti-genocide protests, while the second part, beginning at 2:45, features my interview on Panama.)
The AP reports:
“U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth focused again on China’s presence in the Western Hemisphere Wednesday, one day after calling the world power a threat to the Panama Canal. Speaking at a regional security conference, Hegseth said that China-based companies were controlling land and critical infrastructure in strategic sectors. “China’s military has too large of a presence in the Western Hemisphere,” Hegseth said. “Make no mistake, Beijing is investing and operating in this region for military advantage and unfair economic gain.”
Is China really sending an armada to seize the Panama Canal?! Hegseth’s dire warning struck me as bizarre…though since Chinese industrial capacity is now dwarfing that of the US, it’s conceivable that one day China will rule the waves. After all, in the 15th century, China was sending 500-foot-long ships all over the world, while the Portuguese, the leading European navigators, couldn’t build anything longer than 100 feet.
Maybe Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth, fearing that China’s might someday be five times bigger than theirs, are suffering from some kind of penile anxiety disorder. That would explain Hegseth’s childish temper tantrum in Panama.
Wondering whether China had suddenly built naval bases near Panama on the sly, I asked ChatGPT: “Trump Administration people say China has too much influence over the Panama Canal. What kind of influence?” The AI answer was a bunch of vague blah-blah-blah about “economic and strategic influence.” In short, China has been helping Panama improve the canal, and then shipping goods through it. I asked: “So why is any of that bad for the US?!”
ChatGPT: “Great question — and honestly, that’s at the heart of the whole debate. On the surface, trade and investment aren’t inherently bad — countries invest in each other all the time. But here’s why some U.S. officials and analysts viewed China’s influence in thePanama Canal area as a strategic concern rather than just normal business: *it’s a global choke point… *it’s America’s back yard… *economic leverage can become political leverage.”
I responded:
“Most of this sounds too abstract. It sounds like the Trump Administration is playing a childish game of one-upsmanship, and that the perceptions are everything and the reality is nothing. I am interested in the reality. For example, you say: ‘So, even if they’re doing normal port business today, they could be leveraged for intelligence gathering, military logistics, or political pressure tomorrow.’ But given US military and especially naval power in the Western Hemisphere, is it realistic to imagine a Chinese military threat to America based on a Chinese commercial presence in Panama?!”
ChatGPT:
“That’s a sharp take — and you’re absolutely right to call out the difference between perception and reality. A lot of the rhetoric around this does come off as strategic chest-thumping or Cold War-style anxiety, where the mere presence of China anywhere near U.S. interests is treated like a threat — even when the real-world impact is pretty limited.
Let’s unpack your core question: Is it realistic to imagine a Chinese military threat to the U.S. based on a commercial presence in Panama? The Short Answer: Not really. (China has no military presence whatsoever anywhere near Panama, while the US has 76 bases!)
I was relieved that the AI confirmed what I already knew: There is no Chinese threat to Panama. Trump and Hegseth are just throwing temper tantrums out of fear that they may no longer have the biggest wang, as it were, on the planet.
Press TV: Panama has rejected any efforts to re-establish U.S. military bases on the country's soil, emphasizing that the sovereignty over the Panama Canal remains non-negotiable. Panama made clear through President Mulino that we cannot accept military bases or defense sites. “We want and know that we need to maintain security cooperation with the United States and its armed forces, which is a recurring thing.”
Panama's security minister also stressed that his country has not ceded sovereignty over the canal or its adjacent areas in any agreement. He was speaking during a joint public appearance with visiting Pentagon Chief Pete Hegseth. During the two-day visit, the U.S. Defense Secretary suggested that former American military bases in Panama could host troops again under a new deal signed this week. He also called for free passage through the canal for U.S. Navy ships.
Since taking office in January, U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly argued that China wields excessive influence over the canal, seeking to take back the canal and counter what he called China's disproportionate influence over it. China slammed comments by U.S. officials for portraying China as a threat to the Panama Canal, urging Washington to stop spreading misleading remarks.
“The US senior official maliciously attacked China and vilified and sabotaged China-Panama cooperation, which once again lays bare America's bullying and hegemonic nature. China firmly opposes it. It is so clear for all to see who wants to control the Panama Canal. The US should take a hard look in the mirror to find out who is threatening other countries' sovereignty, security and development. China calls on the U.S. to stop spreading rumors and making trouble, and stop linking China to the Panama Canal issue with ill intention to find an excuse for America's attempt to control the canal. Meanwhile, let me stress that compromise and concession does not protect sovereignty or win respect, but will only embolden the bullies.”
For more insight on that story, we're now joined by editor of Veterans Today, Kevin Barrett, who's with us from Saidiya, Morocco. Mr. Barrett, welcome to the program. Let's jump right in and get your views on the recent comments that were made by the Pentagon chief, Pentagon chief, Pete Hegseth, while in Panama.
Kevin Barrett: Pete Hegseth is a national embarrassment to the United States, almost on the same level as Donald Trump, because Hegseth, unlike Trump, doesn't have some kind of strange charisma. He's just reputedly a guy with alcohol problems, some really bad stuff in his personal past. And also he's basically a belligerent ideological lunatic with relatively modest IQ and no understanding whatsoever of realities of the world.
And so sending people like this to places like Panama just adds to the United States' increasing reputation as a joke, a national joke. The Trump administration is obviously playing the role of the bad guy in a professional wrestling stunt. And this bullying and threatening Panama on the pretext that China is somehow a military threat to the United States through Panama is utterly ludicrous. China has zero military presence in the Western Hemisphere. The United States has more than 70 bases in the region around Panama. What is China actually doing in Panama? They're building, they're enhancing the port. They're building infrastructure. They're trading, sending their goods through the canal.
They're doing nothing whatsoever threatening. There's zero evidence of any military activity whatsoever linked to Panama or really anywhere else in that region or the whole Western hemisphere for that matter.
So what's really going on here? Well, when somebody like Donald Trump—and he's done this—runs around constantly bragging about the size of his male organ, what that means is that he's probably worried about something.
And what's the United States and especially this crazed, deranged Trump administration worried about? Well, they recognize that their power is collapsing. They recognize that their empire is collapsing. And they are going through these bizarre kinds of acting-out psychopathic ritual denunciations of Chinese military power where it doesn't even exist. It’s basically childish one-upsmanship and claiming “mine is bigger than yours, blah, blah, blah.”
It's all just symbolic. It's not realistic. Again, there's no real military threat whatsoever. There's nothing that China could possibly do to the United States simply because it's built some port enhancements and is sending ships full of goods, which are now being turned away because of Trump's trade war. So people won't have those goods, and the American standard of living is about to collapse.
All of this means that the Trump administration is being set up by the international banksters who run the West as the bad guy in a professional wrestling stunt. It's going to go down in flames, and they're setting this up for whatever comes after Trump.
