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E-commerce giant Amazon reported strong earnings Thursday but, like its big tech peers Microsoft and Google, saw its stock price fall on concerns over high AI investment costs.The mounting expenses of data-intensive artificial intelligence and its infrastructure have cast a shadow over this earnings season, with only Facebook owner Meta winning Wall Street’s approval. Meta’s stock surged 18 percent in January as investors endorsed its AI strategy.Amazon’s AWS cloud division, along with rivals Microsoft and Google, are investing heavily in AI data centers while meaningful returns remain uncertain. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy defended the spending, saying the company was on track to spend $100 billion on capital expenditure in 2025, with the “vast majority” on AI. On a call with analysts, he dubbed AI a “once in a lifetime” business opportunity that couldn’t be missed.The emergence of China’s lower-cost DeepSeek model has raised questions about such massive spending. Despite US government efforts to maintain AI dominance through export controls on advanced chips, DeepSeek has achieved comparable results using authorized, less sophisticated Nvidia semiconductors.Microsoft, leading the generative AI revolution through its OpenAI partnership, plans to invest about $80 billion in AI this fiscal year. And while it has rapidly deployed AI features under its Gemini brand, Google’s Cloud revenue missed expectations, despite growing 30 percent to $12 billion. Google also announced plans for $75 billion in capital expenditures for 2025, surprising analysts.Amazon on Thursday reported its fourth-quarter net income doubled to $20 billion, with net sales rising 10 percent to $187.8 billion. AWS remained profitable with sales growing 19 percent to $28.8 billion, though slightly below market expectations. Jassy celebrated “the most successful holiday shopping season yet.”However, Amazon’s shares dropped more than 5 percent in after-hours trading, mirroring reactions to Microsoft and Google’s results – strong profits overshadowed by concerns about AI spending. “Amazon delivered a knockout quarter, but a touch of softness in first quarter guidance has sent shares into a bit of a post-earnings wobble,” said Matt Britzman, a senior equity researcher at Hargreaves Lansdown.Amazon’s forecast of 5-9 percent growth for first-quarter 2025, with sales between $151.0 billion and $155.5 billion, also fell short of analyst expectations and weighed on the stock price.Independent tech analyst Rob Enderle suggested the conservative guidance might reflect uncertainty over US-China trade tensions. “With the tariff uncertainty, Amazon is being much more conservative right now than they otherwise would be,” he said.China could also be a problem for Apple, which posted a record profit of $36.3 billion last week.But Apple lost its status as the best selling smartphone brand in the crucial Chinese market last year and could be negatively affected by the trade battles pitting the Trump administration against Beijing.

US President Donald Trump’s trade envoy nominee Jamieson Greer told his confirmation hearing Thursday that universal tariffs were worth studying, adding that he would work to restructure global trade ties.On the campaign trail, Trump floated the idea of across-the-board tariffs on all US imports, and Greer would be a crucial figure in implementing the president’s trade and tariffs agenda if confirmed as US trade representative.A universal tariff “is something that should be studied and considered” to see if it can reverse the direction of the US trade deficit and offshoring, said Greer, a trade lawyer and official in Trump’s first administration.He was responding to concerns over sweeping duties, which some lawmakers warned could drive up prices.He raised the possibility of the global tariff in the context of a trade policy memo released on Trump’s inauguration day, which called for a report from government agencies by April 1.Addressing the Senate Finance Committee, Greer added that “we have a relatively short window of time to restructure the international trading system to better serve US interests.”Greer, a partner at law firm King & Spalding, served as chief of staff to Trump’s former trade representative Robert Lighthizer during his first presidential term.During that time, he helped to see through a trade deal between the United States, Mexico and Canada — although Trump has since announced, and then paused, fresh tariffs on both partners as talks continue.Asked about potential trade wars with neighboring countries, Greer said “the action that the president is talking about is about fentanyl, where we don’t want another single fentanyl death.””We need to come to an agreement on that,” he said, adding that Mexico and Canada appear willing to do so.Trump has cited illegal immigration and the flow of fentanyl across US borders as a reason for seeking 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico — though a lower rate on Canadian energy.Canada for its part has countered that below one percent of undocumented migrants and fentanyl entering the United States comes through its border.Greer also stressed the need for the country to have a “robust manufacturing base” and innovation economy, warning it would have “little in the way of hard power to deter conflict and protect Americans” otherwise.- Fairness with China -On US trade ties with the world’s second biggest economy, China, Greer said Washington and Beijing need to have a “balanced relationship” overall.He said it was important that if China wanted to trade with the United States and have healthy economic ties, much of this will need to be premised on fair market access.If confirmed, Greer said he would swiftly assess and enforce China’s compliance with a Phase One trade deal Washington and Beijing inked in 2020, marking a truce in the escalating trade war between both sides.During Trump’s first term from 2017 to 2021, the United States introduced tariffs on billions of dollars worth of imports — notably on China but also America’s allies.In particular, the first Trump administration imposed levies on some $300 billion in Chinese goods as Washington and Beijing engaged in a tit-for-tat tariffs war.Trump’s trade representative at the time, Lighthizer, emerged as a strongman in talks as he sought to force changes in Beijing’s economic policies.Greer added Thursday that the United States should be a “country of producers.””We need to create incentives to produce in America, and we need to create incentives to get market access overseas,” he said.On gaining market access, he called for the use of “all the tools at our disposal” to do so.Greer additionally said he was committed to looking at other unfair trade practices if confirmed as USTR.

A judge on Thursday paused a scheme masterminded by billionaire Elon Musk to slash the size of the US government by encouraging federal workers to quit through a mass buyout.The federal judge in Massachusetts ordered a temporary injunction on the plan’s deadline — midnight Thursday — given by Musk for the country’s more than two million government employees. The offer was to quit with eight months’ pay or risk being fired in future culls.The deadline is now extended to Monday, when US District Judge George O’Toole will hold a hearing on the merits of the case brought by labor unions, US media reported.Musk, the world’s richest person and President Donald Trump’s biggest donor, is in charge of a free-ranging entity called the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) that aims to radically downsize federal agencies.According to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, more than 40,000 staff have so far accepted the buyout deal — a relatively small number.Unions representing some 800,000 civil servants and Democratic members of Congress are resisting the scheme and have challenged the legality of threats to fire civil servants.But the broader budget cutting campaign — fanned by anti-government-worker invective from Trump and his aides — has already severely disrupted the huge departments and agencies that for decades have run everything from education to national intelligence.USAID, the government’s agency for distributing aid around the world, has been crippled, with foreign-based staff ordered home and the organization’s programs lambasted daily — and often inaccurately — as wasteful by the White House and right-wing media.Trump has also repeatedly said he wants to shut down the Department of Education. The inducements to resign have even been extended to the CIA.In another sign of the scale of the intended cuts, an official with the agency that manages government property said the real estate portfolio, barring Department of Defense buildings, should be cut by “at least 50 percent.”Leavitt defended the onslaught, telling reporters that federal workers should “accept the very generous offer.”She said “competent” replacements would be found for those who “want to rip the American people off.”Among the controversies swirling around the Musk plan is how much access the South African-born tycoon is getting to secret government data, including the Treasury’s entire payment system.Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Bloomberg TV on Thursday that there was “a lot of misinformation” and that access to such data was only given to two Treasury employees who are working with Musk.Bessent said those employees had “read-only” access, meaning they couldn’t change the data.One of those two resigned, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, after it emerged that he had advocated racism and eugenics on social media.- ‘Chill’ or big ‘con’? -Workers considering the buyout offer face considerable uncertainty, including over whether Trump has the legal right to make the offer and whether the conditions will be honored.The plan was first announced in an email sent across most of the vast federal government and titled “Fork in the road” — the same phrasing as the note Musk sent to employees at Twitter when he bought the social media platform in 2022 and renamed it X.Musk says the paid departures are a chance to “take the vacation you always wanted, or just watch movies and chill, while receiving your full government pay and benefits.”Unions warn that without Congress signing off on the use of federally budgeted money, the agreements may be worthless. “Federal employees shouldn’t be misled by slick talk from unelected billionaires and their lackeys,” said Everett Kelley, president of the large American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE).”We won’t stand by and let our members become the victims of this con.”The Massachusetts lawsuit also casts doubt on assertions that workers would be free to look for other jobs during their deferment periods, citing ethics regulations. An employee in the US Office of Personnel Management, where Musk has put his own staff in key positions, said the plan was to encourage resignations through “panic.””We’re trying to instill a panic so that people just walk out the door and leave government in a crippled state, which is partly their objective,” the employee told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The US Justice Department is scaling back policing of foreign interests operating in the United States, ending criminal enforcement of a law used to snare bad actors seeking to influence politics and elections, including two allies of President Donald Trump.In a memo sent to staff Wednesday, Attorney General Pam Bondi revealed that she had disbanded the Foreign Influence Task Force, a unit dedicated to investigating violations of the law requiring foreign agents to register with US authorities.She said the decision had been made to “free resources to address more pressing priorities, and end risks of further weaponization and abuses of prosecutorial discretion.”Bondi did not elaborate, but figures on the Republican Party’s conspiratorial far right have accused the government of abusing the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) to unfairly target political operatives, such as Paul Manafort, Trump’s 2016 campaign manager. He was indicted as part of a federal probe into Trump’s role in Russia’s attack on the 2016 US election, which found extensive evidence of coordination between the Republican’s campaign and a Kremlin-linked influence operation. Manafort was charged with a litany of offenses, including acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign principal and lying in FARA documents, but he was ultimately pardoned by Trump.FARA was also used to pursue Mike Flynn, Trump’s first national security advisor, who lied to the FBI about contacts with Russia, and former Democratic senator Bob Mendendez, who was jailed in January for bribery and failing to register as a foreign agent for Egypt.Bondi — who previously registered herself under FARA for work she did with Qatar — said she was limiting criminal enforcement of the law to “alleged conduct similar to more traditional espionage by foreign government actors.”In a flurry of edicts sent out on her first day in the job, Bondi also launched a unit focused on the 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel, targeted diversity programs for elimination and restarted enforcement of the federal death penalty, which had been halted under Joe Biden.

The Trump administration has begun using military aircraft to underscore its determination to deport undocumented migrants. But while the optics make for good political theatre, the flights are expensive — as much as $1 million in the case of a recent deportation to India, according to an AFP analysis.In fact military flights can end up costing more than three times as much as a civilian trip, data shows.President Donald Trump was elected on a promise to carry out the biggest deportation “in the history of America.” While most of the migrants being targeted for expulsion come from Latin America, some are also being sent back much further across the globe.On Wednesday, a US Air Force cargo plane landed in Amritsar, India, carrying 104 Indian nationals who had entered the United States illegally, according to a US government statement.The flight is believed to be the first use of a military aircraft to deport people to India.Images captured by an AFP photographer show that the plane used is a C-17A Globemaster III, a large military aircraft capable of transporting troops, vehicles and supplies.The Globemaster is a workhorse of the US Air Force, and has been used in military theatres worldwide since it was first added to the fleet in 1995.But military flights are much more costly to operate than the charter flights that are also used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for deportations.According to information released by ICE in 2021, the cost of a charter flight is $8,577 per flight hour, although flights transporting high-risk migrants may cost more. The use of C-17 aircraft in transport operations is charged at $28,562 per hour, according to documents published by US Air Mobility Command.Military flights also take flight paths that are different to commercial aircraft, due to the sensitivity of operating in the airspace of another sovereign nation. They also generally refuel at military air bases instead of commercial hubs.Data from flight tracking site Flightradar24 shows that the deportation flight took off from Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego, California, at around 1330 GMT on Monday. It then flew west to Hawaii, crossed the Pacific to the Luzon Strait near the Philippines, flew between Indonesia and Malaysia, then took a large detour south into the Indian Ocean where there is a US air base located on the tiny island of Diego Garcia.From there it flew thousands of miles (kilometers) north to India, landing at an airport in the northwestern Indian state of Punjab on Wednesday afternoon local time — more than 43 hours after takeoff from California.Accounting for the return journey to a US air base, the flight cost is likely to be more than $1 million even by the most conservative estimates of time spent airborne, equating to more than $10,000 per detainee.By comparison, a one-way ticket from San Francisco to New Delhi on an American commercial airline can be bought for around $500, or $4,000 in business class.

Rapper Kendrick Lamar, one of the big success stories of the Grammys last week, said Thursday his fans should expect “storytelling” at the Super Bowl halftime show this weekend.Lamar will headline the halftime show at Sunday’s showdown between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles, and has announced SZA will join him as a featured guest.He had a clean sweep at last Sunday’s Grammys, winning in all five categories for which he received nominations — Record of the Year, Song of the Year, best rap song, best rap performance and best music video.”I think I’ve always been very open about storytelling through my catalogue and history of music … I like to always carry on that sense of people listening but also thinking,” he said in an interview ahead of the NFL’s season finale.Lamar said had never imagined he would perform at the Super Bowl when he was starting out. In 2022, he appeared as a featured performer in a hip-hop showcase but this will be his first headline show.”I wasn’t thinking about no Super Bowl — I was thinking about the best verse… It wasn’t no Super Bowl,” he said.”What I know is the passion I have now is still the passion I had then.”He and SZA will head out on tour in April. The big question on everyone’s mind is whether Lamar will perform his Grammy-winning scathing diss track “Not Like Us,” which is part of a feud with fellow rapper Drake that has landed in court.He did not address that issue directly but said he was “just thinking about the culture, really.””When people talk about rap, man, the conversations out there they think it’s just rapping — (like) it’s not an actual art form,” Lamar said. “So when you put records like that at the forefront, it reminds people that this is more than just something that came 50 years ago.”Lamar released “Not Like Us” in May 2024, the fifth of a collection of songs skewering the Canadian rapper that dropped less than a day after his previous single, “Meet the Grahams.”A record-breaking streaming giant, “Not Like Us” catapulted to the top of the charts and quickly became a West Coast rap anthem, beloved for its pounding bass line, rhythmic strings and exaggerated enunciation.Drake has filed a defamation suit against their shared label, saying Universal Music Group’s release and promotion of “Not Like Us” amounted to defamation and harassment.UMG has called the accusations “illogical.”

US President Donald Trump’s trade envoy nominee Jamieson Greer told his confirmation hearing Thursday that universal tariffs were worth studying, adding that he would work to restructure global trade ties.On the campaign trail, Trump raised the idea of across-the-board tariffs on all US imports, and Greer would be a crucial figure in implementing the president’s trade and tariffs agenda if confirmed as US trade representative.A universal tariff “is something that should be studied and considered” to see if it can reverse the direction of the US trade deficit and offshoring, said Greer, a trade lawyer and official in Trump’s first administration.He was responding to concerns over sweeping duties, which some lawmakers warned could drive up prices.Addressing the Senate Finance Committee, Greer added that “we have a relatively short window of time to restructure the international trading system to better serve US interests.”Greer, a partner at law firm King & Spalding, served as chief of staff to Trump’s former trade representative Robert Lighthizer during his first presidential term.During that time, he helped to see through a trade deal between the United States, Mexico and Canada — although Trump has since announced, and then paused, fresh tariffs on both partners as talks continue.Asked about potential trade wars with neighboring countries, Greer said “the action that the president is talking about is about fentanyl, where we don’t want another single fentanyl death.””We need to come to an agreement on that,” he said, adding that Mexico and Canada appear willing to do so.Trump has cited illegal immigration and the flow of fentanyl across US borders as a reason for seeking 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico — though a lower rate on Canadian energy.Canada for its part has countered that below one percent of undocumented migrants and fentanyl entering the United States comes through its border.Greer also stressed the need for the country to have a “robust manufacturing base” and innovation economy, warning it would have “little in the way of hard power to deter conflict and protect Americans” otherwise.- Fairness with China -On US trade ties with the world’s second biggest economy, China, Greer said Washington and Beijing need to have a “balanced relationship” overall.He said it was important that if China wanted to trade with the United States and have healthy economic ties, much of this will need to be premised on fair market access.If confirmed, Greer said he would swiftly assess and enforce China’s compliance with a Phase One trade deal Washington and Beijing inked in 2020, marking a truce in the escalating trade war between both sides.During Trump’s first term from 2017 to 2021, the United States introduced tariffs on billions of dollars worth of imports — notably on China but also America’s allies.In particular, the first Trump administration imposed levies on some $300 billion in Chinese goods as Washington and Beijing engaged in a tit-for-tat tariffs war.Trump’s trade representative at the time, Lighthizer, emerged as a strongman in talks as he sought to force changes in Beijing’s economic policies.Greer added Thursday that the United States should be a “country of producers.””We need to create incentives to produce in America, and we need to create incentives to get market access overseas,” he said.He also noted that the United States needs to gain market access, calling for the use of “all the tools at our disposal” to do so.Greer additionally said he was committed to looking at other unfair trade practices if confirmed as USTR.

The UN’s climate chief, seeking to shore up solidarity on combating global warming as the United States retreats from its leadership role, appealed to nations’ self-interest in a speech Thursday.Speaking at a university in Brazil’s capital, Simon Stiell said global heating was “dangerously high,” but that real progress had been made since the landmark Paris Agreement.He conceded many countries would miss a February 10 deadline to submit their next round of climate plans — giving them until September to deliver “first-rate” emissions roadmaps.Brazil is set to host the next global climate conference, COP30, in November.”We are already headed in the right direction. We just have to implement, and implement more and faster,” said the former Grenadan environment minister.Quickly after his White House return, President Donald Trump announced the US withdrawal from the Paris deal for the second time. “A country may step back –- but others are already stepping into their place to seize the opportunity, and to reap the massive rewards: stronger economic growth, more jobs, less pollution and far lower health costs, more secure and affordable energy,” said Stiell. He said economic reality would drive action, with climate investment now at $2 trillion.Self-interest, he said, “above all other factors, is why the clean energy shift is now unstoppable: because of the colossal scale of economic opportunity it presents.”- Climate costs -Only a handful of countries have so far submitted their climate plans, including Brazil and Britain, with big emitters China and the European Union expected to follow later in the year.A UN official said that over 170 countries had indicated they were working on their new emissions goals and planned to submit them this year, most of them before COP30.When the Paris deal was signed ten years ago, the world was heading for 5 degrees Celsius of warming above pre-industrial levels.That was “a death sentence for humanity as we know it,” said Stiell, noting that the current trajectory of 3C was still catastrophic.     The safer limit under the Paris deal is 1.5C, but scientists say that is slipping out of reach.Last year was the hottest on record, and the combined average temperature of 2023 and 2024 exceeded the 1.5C threshold for the first time. On Thursday, Europe’s climate monitor said last month was the hottest January on record.Last year’s contentious COP29 meeting in Baku ended with richer countries agreeing to provide at least $300 billion annually by 2035 to help poorer nations progress their green transition and build resilience. The actual need has been estimated at $1.3 trillion in developing countries — many of whom are facing crushing debts.Stiell said the focus this year would be to find other sources of money to plug the gap.  He stressed the funding was “not charity” but a way to curb inflation caused by climate disasters. “Just take rising food prices, which have the fingerprints of climate-driven droughts, floods, and wildfires all over them,” he said.

Israel’s defence minister ordered the army on Thursday to prepare for “voluntary” departures from Gaza, as US President Donald Trump ruled out sending troops to the territory.Trump had earlier proposed moving Palestinians out of Gaza, sparking uproar from leaders in the Middle East and beyond.Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said he had instructed the military to formulate a plan for Palestinians to leave Gaza, which has been ravaged by more than a year of war.”I have instructed the IDF (military) to prepare a plan to enable voluntary departure for Gaza residents,” Katz said, adding they could go “to any country willing to accept them”.Trump announced his proposal to audible gasps on Tuesday at a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the first foreign leader to meet him at the White House since his inauguration.The United Nations warned any forced displacement of Palestinians would be “tantamount to ethnic cleansing”.Trump insisted “everybody loves” the plan, saying it would involve the United States taking over Gaza, though he offered few details on how more than two million Palestinians would be removed.His administration later appeared to backtrack, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying any transfer of Gazans would be temporary.Trump doubled down on his proposal on Thursday, however.”The Gaza Strip would be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of fighting,” he said on his Truth Social network.”No soldiers by the US would be needed! Stability for the region would reign!!!”Rubio also said later that those denouncing Trump’s plan should “step forward and provide a solution and answer to that problem”.Hamas’s spokesman condemned Trump’s statements as “absolutely unacceptable”.”Trump’s remarks about Washington taking control of Gaza amount to an open declaration of intent to occupy the territory,” Hazem Qassem said.”Gaza is for its people and they will not leave.- ‘Greatest friend’ -Netanyahu, speaking to Fox News on Wednesday, called the proposal “remarkable” and hailed Trump as Israel’s “greatest friend”.”I think it should be really pursued, examined, pursued and done, because I think it will create a different future for everyone.”Katz said Trump’s plan “could create broad opportunities for Gaza residents who wish to leave… and also facilitate the advancement of reconstruction programs for a demilitarised, threat-free Gaza”.Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich — who vowed Wednesday to “definitively bury” the idea of a Palestinian state — said he welcomed Katz’s move.Palestinians residing in the coastal territory have vowed to remain. For them, any attempt to push them out of Gaza recalls the “Nakba”, or “catastrophe” — the mass displacement of Palestinians during Israel’s creation in 1948.”They can do whatever they want, but we will remain steadfast in our homeland,” said 41-year-old Gazan Ahmed Halasa.Israelis in Jerusalem largely welcomed Trump’s proposal, though some doubted it could be carried out.”I really like what he said, but in my wildest dreams… it’s hard for me to believe it will happen, but who knows,” said 65-year-old Refael.White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump wanted Palestinians to only be “temporarily relocated” out of Gaza.”It’s not a liveable place for any human being,” she said.But Trump, who also suggested he might visit Gaza, implied it would not be rebuilt for Palestinians.- ‘Ethnic cleansing’ -Even before Tuesday’s announcements, Trump had suggested residents of Gaza should move to Egypt and Jordan, both of which have flatly rejected any resettlement of Palestinians on their territory.Egypt’s foreign ministry on Thursday said Israeli support for Trump’s plan “weakens and destroys the negotiations on a ceasefire agreement and incites a return to fighting”.Egypt, Qatar and the United States mediated the fragile January 19 ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. Talks resumed this week for the second phase of the truce, expected to herald a more permanent end to the fighting.UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres emphasised “the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people… to simply live as human beings in their own land”.His spokesman Stephane Dujarric said: “Any forced displacement of people is tantamount to ethnic cleansing.”The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Phillipe Lazzarini, tweeted: “The rights of the Palestinians continue to be violated. Since the war began, people in Gaza have undergone systematic dehumanization.””Palestinians do matter, including those in Gaza. Their rights, lives & futures matter. Human rights cannot be applied selectively,” he added.Israel’s military offensive in response to Hamas’s attack has left much of Gaza in ruins, including schools, hospitals and most civil infrastructure.In a bid to address the dire humanitarian situation, aid has been rushed into the territory since the ceasefire took effect.UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher said Thursday that more than 10,000 aid trucks had crossed into Gaza since the truce went into effect, calling it “a massive surge”.burs-dv/jsa/ysm

Panama on Thursday rejected the United States’ claim of securing free passage for its government vessels through the Panama Canal, while bowing to US pressure to quit a key Chinese project.Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino told reporters the US assertion about the waterway was “intolerable,” adding that he rejected “bilateral relations based on lies and falsehoods.”Since winning the US election in November, President Donald Trump has refused to rule out the use of force to seize the canal built by Washington over a century ago and later handed over to Panama.Around 40 percent of US container traffic passes through the narrow body of water linking the Caribbean Sea with the Pacific Ocean.The new row between Panama and Washington erupted after the US State Department claimed that Panama had agreed to let American government vessels through the canal for free after talks last weekend between Mulino and Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio.In a post on the social media platform X, the State Department claimed the decision would save the US government “millions of dollars a year.”Speaking Thursday in the Dominican Republic, Rubio argued that it was “absurd” for US naval vessels to have to pay “to transit a zone we are obligated to protect in time of conflict.”He stopped short however of claiming that an agreement had been reached. The Panama Canal Authority (PCA), an independent body that runs the waterway, said it had “not made any adjustments” to its tariffs but that it was open to dialogue on the matter.- ‘Not breaking the US’ -US government vessels — primarily from the navy — make up a small portion of the ships that pass through the canal.Trump has loudly complained that US vessels are being overcharged to use the shipping route.Mulino said that US government vessels, including navy vessels, paid “$6-7 million a year” for the right of passage.”It’s not as if the canal toll is breaking the economy of the United States,” he remarked.Beyond the tolls, Washington has appeared chiefly concerned about Chinese investment in the 50-mile (80-kilometer) long canal, which handles five percent of global maritime trade.CK Hutchison Holdings — owned by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing — has a concession to manage two of the canal’s five ports.Trump, who is scheduled to hold telephone talks on Friday with Mulino, has claimed that Beijing could close the canal to the United States in a crisis — a claim Panama strenuously denies.But in a key concession to Washington, Mulino on Thursday confirmed that Panama had pulled out of China’s massive Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) infrastructure program.- Chinese project torpedoed -Mulino said that the Panamanian Embassy in Beijing had given China the required 90-day notice of its decision not to renew its involvement in the program, which it joined in 2017.Panama is the first Latin American country to announce its withdrawal from President Xi Jinping’s signature, trillion-dollar program, which operates in over 100 countries.On Wednesday, China’s Foreign Affairs spokesman, Lin Jian, had argued that the partnership was yielding “fruitful results” and urged Panama to “resist external interferences.”The latest controversy over the Panama Canal comes at the end of Rubio’s week-long visit to Central America, his first as the US top diplomat.He had threatened action against Panama unless it made immediate changes to reduce Chinese influence on the canal but later appeared more conciliatory, hailing Mulino’s pledge to quit China’s infrastructure program as a “great step forward” for bilateral relations.Following Trump’s canal takeover threat, Mulino last month ordered an audit of Hutchison Holdings.”If they violate the terms of the concession or cause imminent economic harm to the country, we will act accordingly, but for now the audit is ongoing,” he said Thursday.