During Monday’s inauguration, Donald Trump repeated his threat to retake the Panama Canal. The United States controlled the waterway since the early 20th century, but in 1977 President Jimmy Carter signed a landmark treaty to give Panama control of the canal.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s insistence that he wants to have the Panama Canal back under U.S. control is feeding nationalist sentiment and worry in Panama, home to the critical trade route and a country familiar with U.

In recent weeks, when he was President-elect Donald Trump publicly said that Panama should return the Panama Canal to the United States, and he would not rule out using military force to reclaim it. At his presidential Inauguration on Monday Trump doubled down on saying that his new administration was going to take back the canal.

Panama took full control of the canal in 1999, which it operates through the Panama Canal Authority (PCA). In December, Mr Trump threatened to seize control of the canal, declaring the waterway as vital to America’s security and economic interests but it was being run in a “very unfair and injudicious way”.

The neutrality of the nearly 50-mile canal, through which nearly 15,000 ships transit each year, is enshrined in Panama’s Constitution and is enforced by the autonomous Panama Canal Authority.

US President Donald Trump's threat to seize the Panama Canal over alleged undue Chinese influence may really be aimed at limiting Beijing's growing diplomatic and economic presence in Latin America, experts say.

The Panamanian leader added he will not allow his country’s “total superiority” of the shipping channel to be lessened.