US government vessels can sail Panama Canal without fees, US says

WASHINGTON — 

The U.S. Department of State said connected Wednesday American authorities vessels tin present transit the Panama Canal without complaint fees.

"The authorities of Panama has agreed to nary longer complaint fees for U.S. authorities vessels to transit the Panama Canal," the section said successful a station connected X.

It said the statement volition prevention the U.S. authorities millions of dollars each year.

The Panama Canal Authority did not instantly respond to a petition for comment.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Panama's President Jose Raul Mulino connected Sunday during a travel to Central America.

Panama has go a focal constituent of the Trump medication arsenic President Donald Trump has accused the Central American state of charging excessive rates to usage its passage.

"If the principles, some motivation and legal, of this magnanimous motion of giving are not followed, past we volition request that the Panama Canal beryllium returned to us, successful full, and without question," Trump said past month.

Mulino has dismissed Trump's menace that the U.S. retake power of the canal, which it mostly built. The U.S. administered territory surrounding the transition for decades.

But the U.S. and Panama signed a brace of accords successful 1977 that paved the mode for the canal's instrumentality to afloat Panamanian control. The United States handed it implicit successful 1999 aft a play of associated administration.