Number 4. Reuters. Hong Kong firm sells Panama Canal stake to BlackRock.
BlackRock, Inc., is the largest investment firm in the world with over $11 trillion under management.
Now, it aims to have Panama Canal traffic under its management also.
When the first Panama Canal treaty was signed in 1903, the Canal Zone was under the control of Colombia. Then-President Teddy Roosevelt supported a fledgling Panamanian independence movement, and when the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty was finalized, the U.S. acquired permanent rights to the Panama Canal Zone across the isthmus from Atlantic to Pacific.
Throughout the 20th century there was much consternation on the part of the new country of Panama, alleging the unfairness of U.S. occupation. In 1978, President Jimmy Carter abandoned his pre-election opposition to re-negotiating ownership of the Canal Zone and supported a public relations initiative to convince Americans to cede the Canal to Panama.
The next year, Carter signed legislation that allowed joint U.S.-Panama administration of the Canal. The agreement required complete U.S. withdrawal by 1999.
In the new century, China has demonstrated a growing interest in the Canal. Some claim the agreement to cede the Zone to Panama prohibited other foreign powers from exerting control.
In my amateurish research, that claim seems difficult to pin down, just as it is equally difficult to quantify exactly how much control China has acquired. Phrases like, “there is no evidence of Chinese ownership,” and “claims without proof have been made,” crop up in mainstream articles on the subject.
As Tolkien told us, “It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.” President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio seem to be Tolkien adherents. They have made no secret they want Chinese influence gone.
And now — wonder of wonders — a thoroughly American investment firm seems to have struck an agreement to acquire the Canal. It is a huge win for the Trump agenda.
Interestingly, all the media buzz is about how the BlackRock-led consortium called Global Infrastructure Partners negotiated with Hong Kong’s CK Hutchinson Holdings for the purchase of Atlantic and Pacific ports at both ends of the Canal.
I thought I had read about two paragraphs ago that China had very little to do with the Canal. And maybe China is NOT involved… except that since 1999 Hong Kong has been under Chinese control, and probably nothing commercial happens in the People’s Republic without Chinese Communist Party involvement.
It seems that 1999 was a banner year for Chinese incursion into the western hemisphere. Most of the world’s shipping came under Panamanian control; Hong Kong came under Chinese control; Hong Kong began buying access to the Canal; China ended up in a position to control world trade.
Someone here is playing chess as a long game.
And I have to wonder at the BlackRock transformation. Only two months ago, several articles highlighted BlackRock’s retreat from their ESG investment strategy. The idea during the Biden administration was that investments would be made based on “environmental, social, and governance” criteria rather than profits.
That did not work well, as Texas recently led a coalition of 10 other states to file suit against BlackRock for suppressing returns on things like state-owned pension funds. BlackRock is now not alone in abandoning ESG. They are suddenly followed by JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley.
There are some serious names in that list. It seems that public opinion — or at least publicly expressed opinions — have shifted dramatically to the right on the political spectrum since Donald Trump’s election.
I find it a stretch to think that Trump the deal-maker had nothing to do with the BlackRock initiative toward the Canal: Trump announces that he does not trust China to manage the Panama Canal; BlackRock suddenly decides to make a $23 billion deal to purchase control; the Canal is suddenly under U.S. management; and China has withdrawn.
This one development would be a signal accomplishment of any presidential administration. But there is so much going on that these monumental moves are becoming routine.
Here is another story from south of the border reflecting the wide swath Donald Trump is cutting.
In the largest extradition in Mexico’s history, that country last week rounded up and sent 29 alleged drug cartel members to face justice in the United States.
The Trump administration’s demand that Mexico control the flow of drugs northward across the border prompted Mexican President Sheinbaum to dispatch 10,000 federal troops to interdict the exports.
When the Trump administration designated cartels as terrorist organizations, it raised the likelihood that U.S. direct military action on Mexican soil against Mexican cartels would be carried out.
Hellfire missiles launched from MQ-9 Reaper drones might suddenly be in the forecast. “Partly cloudy this afternoon toward Siesta-time with a chance of Hellfire. Temperatures in places up to 3600 Kelvin.”
Uncertainty is a highly effective tool of the Negotiator-in-Chief. No one quite knows what he will do.
The prospect of an uncompromising U.S. president focusing on an illegal drug trade has sent remaining cartel leaders scurrying for cover. One Sinaloa Cartel leader — I don’t think they have official spokespersons — told the New York Times that he can’t sleep. “You don’t know when they’ll catch you!”
The disruption has caused cartels to begin selling off some of their property, and also firing staff considered non-essential, as they have begun to streamline operations.
Where have I heard that recently? Next thing you know, there will be a Mexican implementation of DOGE among drug dealers.
President Sheinbaum, meanwhile, is caught between the seemingly immovable object of the cartel, and the irresistible force of the Trump administration. Still hanging over her is the threat of a 25% tariff on her country’s exported goods if the drug trade is not staunched.
For those who have assumed the U.S. is a carefree pool of unregulated wealth waiting to be plundered, the world has suddenly become a very uncomfortable place.
Number 2. Newsmax. Trump to discuss halting military aid to Ukraine.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, Ukraine continues to fight a losing battle with the Russian bear.
During the disastrous meltdown in the joint U.S.-Ukraine press conference a week ago, it became clear that at that time Ukraine’s President Zelensky had no desire to end the war fighting without a solid guarantee that the U.S. would actively take his side against Russia.
Just approaching this from a very simple worldview, it would seem that “actively taking his side against Russia” would require U.S. troops on the ground trading fire with Russian troops. This is something that has been scrupulously avoided since 1945, because about every sentient human on the planet recognizes that it would be the start of a shooting war.
In an era where both sides can destroy the world several times over with nukes, that is a patently bad idea.
It is no wonder President Trump accused Zelensky of “playing with World War 3” during a heated exchange before the cameras.
Later that day, Zelensky managed to add inadvisable comments to his earlier disrespectful conduct. The Ukrainian president announced his belief that peace between his country and Russia was “very, very far away.”
Volodymr Zelensky might have been well advised to read the room. President Trump clearly wanted a quick end to the fighting. The notion that it would drag on for years more was not exactly what he had in mind.
Trump’s proposal to strike a deal for mining rare earth in Ukraine — where such minerals are plentiful — would put many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Americans inside Ukraine. With that commercial initiative in place, Russia’s Putin would have a very hard time continuing aggressive military action. That prospect was a de facto security guarantee there for Zelensky’s taking.
On this past Tuesday night in his address to the joint session of Congress, President Trump read the letter he received just that day from President Zelensky. In the letter, Zelensky seemed to offer an apology, of sorts, and indicated he was ready to return to the table and sign the rare earth minerals agreement.
We shall see what happens next, but I doubt that Trump would have mentioned it if he had not intended to go forward with the arrangement.
The deal-maker strikes again.
Number 1. The Daily Mail. Donald Trump is more popular than ever according to shock poll.
I am glad I don’t have to make this stuff up. I do not think I could write satire that would stay ahead of the parade of news.
Led by 18-to-29-year-olds, President Trump’s popularity among Americans has risen to 56%. Support from Republicans, in this poll, has dipped from 92% to 89% in the last month, but Democrat approval rose from 20% to 22% in the same time frame. The most dramatic, and unexpected, increase was among the 20-somethings, from 51% to 56%.
This probably has as much do with the pace of Trump’s activity as much as anything else. Consider a few of the shocking initiatives he has championed:
Elon Musk’s DOGE on the warpath to cut excess government costs, cancelling hundreds of millions of dollars of government contracts and drastically reducing the ranks of government employees,
RFK’s Make-America-Healthy-Again program,
an External Revenue Service to potentially entirely replace the Internal Revenue Service,
elimination of income tax on Social Security benefits,
bringing manufacturing back on-shore,
completely eliminating illegal immigration at the southern border,
re-establishing the U.S. as an energy exporter,
re-acquiring control of the Panama Canal,
crushing Mexican drug cartels,
removing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs across government,
returning the U.S. military from a social experiment to a war-fighting machine,
abolishing the Department of Education,
transforming the Green Card into the Gold Card for legal immigrants,
and now, apparently, formally engaging with Ukraine in the mining of rare earth minerals.
I am quite sure I have missed important points.
There is too much to write about, or even to comprehend. Any one of those concepts would be worth a college course. In the first four weeks of a new administration, we have seen them all proposed by a President who apparently does not sleep.
I don’t know about you; I’m exhausted.
The Limestone Mine Revisited
One footnote to the ANR from two weeks ago: We discussed the limestone mine in Pennsylvania where U.S government retirement papers are stored long-term. I speculated that with Elon Musk moving so aggressively to force early retirements, the retirement paperwork might have to be digitized for simplicity, and to handle the sudden increased demand.
Well… woe is me. The federal government has actually been working on exactly that. I came across an article that described a plan by the Office of Personnel Management to modernize its Retirement System, creatively named “Retirement Systems Modernization.”
A recent review of the article goes into some detail about the need to make the paperwork less cumbersome and more responsive to federal retirees’ needs. There are references to forecasts of retirements that will require such streamlining.
The original article was written in… 2008. According to the 2025 review, the RSM began a trial in 2006. The trial ran through 2010. Now, 15 years later, analysis is complete and the first real-world test of the upgraded retirement system is scheduled to begin.
Only 19 years in the making, and some year soon, the first test may be complete. [Sigh] There might be opportunities for more like Elon.
And thanks for joining The Alligator News Roundup for Friday, March 7, 2025. I can hardly wait to see how this news ages in the next 48 hours before you read it. The world is moving very fast. Let’s all try to keep up. Have a good weekend!
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