These drills come amid Donald Trump’s repeated claims of excessive Chinese influence over the crucial trade route, despite Panama’s assertions of sovereignty.

In an interview with Euronews, Panama's Foreign Minister Javier Martínez-Acha said that the US military exercises taking place in the South American country are temporary and that no foreign armed forces will remain there permanently.

By applying American power in energetic, omnidirectional fashion, Trump has revealed much about the true state of world affairs.

To kick off the drills, three US Army helicopters arrived in Panama on Sunday – two UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters and a CH-47 Chinook – landing at the Panama-Pacific Airport, formerly the US Howard bas

Hal Brands is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and the Henry Kissinger Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

By bnl editorial staff US helicopters have arrived in Panama to begin collaborative training exercises with local security forces, as tensions mount over the strategic waterway's future amid competing US and Chinese interests.

US infringements of the sovereignty of other countries (including Australia) make Chinese 'interference' look decidedly tame.

Trump’s new foreign policy leans toward recognizing spheres of influence, departing from past interventionism and potentially avoiding future great power conflicts, especially with China, if handled with restraint and clarity.

Political scientists have a term for the tactic, that has been used by some leaders including Nixon, to persuade adversaries that they are temperamentally capable of anything, to extract concessions.

When Donald Trump threatened to impose a 50 per cent tariff on Brazilian goods last week, the reaction in Brasília was swift and vocal ( writes Bryan Harris ). This economic sanction had no financial motivation;