Trump triggers Panama again with "reclaiming" comment regarding Panama Canal

US President Donald Trump has hailed a deal led by US firm BlackRock to buy most of the $22.8 billion ports business of Hong Kong conglomerate CK Hutchison which includes assets along the Panama Canal.

The deal would give the US consortium control of key Panama Canal ports amid White House calls to remove them from what it says is Chinese ownership. But it also risks heightening tensions between the US and Panama, which have tussled over Trump's claims about the canal.

"My administration will be reclaiming the Panama Canal, and we've already started doing it," Trump told the US Congress yesterday.

"Just today, a large American company announced they are buying both ports around the Panama Canal and lots of other things having to do with the Panama Canal and a couple of other canals."

Panama's president, Jose Raul Mulino, said Trump was "once again lying" in a post on social media on Wednesday morning.

"The Panama Canal is not in the process of being reclaimed ... the canal is Panamanian and will continue to be Panamanian!"

Goldman Sachs is advising CK Hutchison on the deal, two sources with knowledge of the deal said. Goldman Sachs declined to comment.

The size of the proceeds would be similar to CK Hutchison's entire Hong Kong market value prior to Wednesday's share rally.

About 12,000 ships used the Panama Canal last year that connects 1,920 ports across 170 countries. Its position is strategic for the US as more than three-quarters of vessels passing through originate in or are bound for the United States.

Trump has repeatedly claimed that the Canal was under Chinese influence, while CK Hutchison is based in Hong Kong. Hong Kong returned from British to Chinese rule in 1997 with the guarantee its freedoms, including freedom of speech, would be protected under a "one country, two systems" formula. These freedoms have since been consistently eroded to the point of near non-existence.

Mulino on Thursday said that Trump's "reclaiming" of the canal had not been part of discussions with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a recent visit or with any other US official.

(Reporting by Scott Murdoch, Clare Jim, Kane Wu and Donny Kwok; Additional reporting by Elida Moreno and Kylie Madry; Editing by Sumeet Chatterjee, Christopher Cushing, Elaine Hardcastle and Nick Zieminski)