After President Donald Trump sharply criticized China’s influence over the Panama Canal, a BlackRock-led investment group reportedly will buy majority stakes in ports on both sides of the canal for $22.8 billion.
The deal would provide U.S.-based private investment on traffic in the canal, as BlackRock takes over majority ownership from Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.
“China is operating the Panama Canal, and we didn’t give it to China,” Trump said in his inaugural address Jan. 20, noting that former Democrat President Jimmy Carter gave the U.S.-built canal to Panama in a 1977 treaty.
Under the BlackRock agreement with CK Hutchison, Panama Ports would give 90% interest to BlackRock’s new infrastructure arm Global Infrastructure Partners and Geneva-based Terminal Investment.
The deal also includes CK Hutchison’s controlling interest in 43 other ports in 23 countries, according to the report.
CK Hutchison denied that the sale was motivated by Trump’s pressure on Panama to stop its giving deference to China.
The deal was agreed upon after a “competitive process in which numerous bids and expressions of interest were received,” CK Hutchison’s co-managing director, Frank Sixt, said in a statement, the Journal reported. “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.”
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink acquired GIP last year, making a global bet on private infrastructure assets.
GIP controls energy, transportation, and waste and water companies around the world, including U.S. natural-gas pipelines and data centers, the Journal reported.
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