Posts falsely claim BlackRock bought Panama Canal
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"BlackRock just bought the Panama Canal, and no one's talking about it," a voiceover says at the start of a March 6, 2025 TikTok video. "BlackRock, the world's most powerful private equity firm, just took control of... the most important shipping lane in the Western Hemisphere."
An X account sharing the video wrote: "Thanks to Trump, the Panama Canal is now another BlackRock asset."
Similar posts -- some of which added details of the agreement or linked to news articles with accurate information -- spread elsewhere on X and Threads. The claim also circulated in Spanish.
Since his reelection, Trump has argued that China controls the Panama Canal, in a potential security threat to the United States. He has also claimed the canal overcharges for US vessels and suggested the United States might seek to "take back" the canal that was turned over to Panama under a 1977 agreement.
Trump further misled during his March 4 speech to a joint session of Congress, saying: "My administration will be reclaiming the Panama Canal, and we've already started doing it."
The comment drew a quick response from Panama's President José Raúl Mulino, who said the US leader was "lying" and that the important shipping lane remains under Panamanian sovereignty.
The same day as Trump's speech, the Hong Kong-based firm CK Hutchison Holdings Limited announced a deal to sell a controlling interest in a subsidiary operating 43 ports in 23 countries, including two along the Panama Canal, to a BlackRock-led investor group. The sellers will receive some $19 billion in cash.
Hutchison said the deal was motivated by business, not politics.
"I would like to stress that the transaction is purely commercial in nature and wholly unrelated to recent political news reports concerning the Panama Ports," co-managing director Frank Sixt said in a statement (archived here).
'We did not buy the Panama Canal'
At an energy conference in Houston, Texas on March 10, BlackRock chief executive Larry Fink said the reports of his company taking over the canal were incorrect.
"My kids called me and said, 'BlackRock bought the Panama Canal, can we go on it?' And I said, 'We did not buy the Panama Canal,'" Fink told an interviewer in the event carried by CNBC, and shared on YouTube (archived here and here).
Fink added that Panama represents just two of the more than 40 ports that would be acquired in the deal.
Researchers John Bradford and Isaac Kardon of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore wrote in a March 10 research note that the transaction is important, but does not change ownership of the canal (archived here).
They said the deal "will fundamentally alter the global commercial maritime landscape and have a profound impact on the US-China competition," but it "will not change Panama's sovereign control over the canal."
"The Panama part of this story is overblown: the canal was never under China's control, nor is it reverting to US control through this purchase."
The canal was constructed by the United States, mainly with Afro-Caribbean labor, and opened in 1914. The United States administered it until 1977, when treaties were signed under then-US president Jimmy Carter for its handover to Panama.
Since 1999, the canal has been managed by the Panama Canal Authority -- an autonomous entity whose board of directors is appointed by the legislature and president of Panama.
The 80-kilometer (50-mile) long canal handles five percent of global maritime trade, and 40 percent of US container traffic.
AFP has fact-checked other claims about BlackRock here and here.
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