A scenic historical monument overlooking the Panama Canal appears to have become the latest casualty in President Donald Trump’s simmering contest with China for influence over the key waterway.
The small park meant to honor the Central American nation’s large ethnic Chinese population had been slowly decaying, despite the objections of community leaders. Its crumbling obelisk and taped-off friendship arch became a symbol of Panama’s shift away from Beijing under pressure from Washington.
Now, local authorities have toppled both structures.
The Mirador de las Américas was torn down late Saturday night under municipal orders, sparking an end-of-year scandal in Panama that has roped in Chinese foreign officials and prompted the Panamanian president to call for an investigation.
The episode has only further escalated tensions in Panama over foreign influence by the U.S. and China over the canal, which serves as a key waterway for some 40 percent of U.S. container traffic. Trump in January repeatedly claimed that Beijing runs the waterway and vowed to “take back” control — including by force, if necessary.
Stefany Peñalba, the mayor of the bedroom community where the overlook is located, characterized the decision to take down the monument as a technical, preventative measure and said it was “not in response to any political pressure.”
But Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino, who vowed to probe Peñalba over the legality of the incident, called it an “unforgivable, irrational act” in a statement that echoed some of the concerns lodged by China’s foreign ministry.
Panama’s Chinese community has “been established in our country for generations and deserves our full respect,” he wrote on social media on Monday.
The U.S. Embassy in Panama and the State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In Panama, Mulino has pushed back against some of Trump’s most aggressive rhetoric on the canal but generally aligned himself with the U.S. Over the summer, he rejected the notion that the overlook site was getting roped into geopolitical tensions — even as he and his top officials have taken moves to align themselves with Washington.
After Secretary of State Marco Rubio threatened action over the canal, Panama in February became the first Latin American country to pull out of the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s signature foreign infrastructure program.
His government made deals to let the U.S. take down telecommunications towers owned by a Chinese company and to allow U.S. military forces to return to three largely vacant training facilities near the waterway.
That agreement, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said, was meant to keep Panama from “capitulating to coercion by the communist Chinese.”
The canal was built by the U.S. and controlled by Washington until 1999, when it was handed over to an independent authority linked to the Panamanian government. At his inaugural address, Trump accused Panama of charging U.S. ships and firms higher fees to transit the canal — a claim the authority denies.
Neither he nor his ambassador to Panama have explicitly brought up the overlook site, but some Chinese Panamanian community leaders raised skepticism about how that geopolitical battle might be influencing the fate of monument — and, as a consequence, their ethnic community’s standing.
Peñalba, the mayor, posted renderings earlier this year of the canal overlook on Instagram showing the park without the arch or obelisk. When Chinese Panamanian community groups sent multiple pleas seeking permission to repair the site, she did not answer.
Tony Jiang, the president of one such group, the Fayen Beneficiary Society, said the monument’s removal seemed to confirm their worst fears.
“This monument belongs to the Panamanian people. She doesn’t have the right to change Panamanian history,” he told local news reporters by the overlook the night it was toppled. “For us as Panamanians of Chinese descent, it’s painful. For all Panamanians, it’s painful.”
Groups like his have walked a fine line — and sometimes faced internal divisions — between separating themselves entirely from Beijing and advocating for Beijing’s political or economic presence in Panama, particularly because some members maintain business ties to China.
But his words appeared to echo those of the Chinese Ambassador to Panama, Xu Xueyuan, who said the fallout over the monument’s removal was “at once indignant and inspiring” and suggested it could help boost Chinese influence in Panama.
The pushback from Mulino and others had shown “the national will and generous culture in Panama of respecting history and valuing diversity and solidarity,” she said in a statement. “As the Chinese proverb says: Fortune and misfortune go hand in hand.”
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