(UPDATE) PANAMA CITY — United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday threatened action against Panama without immediate changes to reduce Chinese influence on the canal, but the country's leader insisted he was not afraid of a US invasion and offered talks.
On his first trip overseas as the top US diplomat, Rubio took a guided tour of the canal accompanied by its Panamanian administrator as a South Korean-affiliated oil tanker and Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship passed through the vital link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
