China's expanding footprint in Latin America is expected to be high on the agenda when US Secretary of State Marco Rubio visits Panama next week on his first overseas trip since taking office, according to observers.

Marco Rubio will head overseas late next week; he's also scheduled to visit Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic.

The answer is simple: there is no greater or more idealistic symbol of U.S. power in the world than the Panama Canal. As Trump seeks a way to enhance the country's power in the world, leaning on imagery regarding the Panama Canal provides just the right message.

President Trump’s push to take back control of the strategic waterway stokes memories of a period of U.S. imperial ambition and violence.

Russia’s foreign ministry has called on Trump to reaffirm the current international agreement surrounding the Panama Canal and to leave it in control of the nation of Panama.

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.

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.

Trump has suggested using military force to retake the Panama Canal, but such an action would involve complications.

Greenland is protected by NATO’s Article 5 which invokes mutual defence in the case of any armed attack or invasion, the Finnish foreign minister has said. According to Elina Valtonen, Article 5 is extended to Greenland as an autonomous territory of Denmark,

They say they fought too hard to wrest it from the U.S. to now hand back the waterway, which is part of the nation’s identity.

Donald Trump said in an interview with Fox News that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy "shouldn't have allowed" war in his country to happen.