Panama has owned and administered the Panama Canal for nearly three decades. President Trump wants to change that to counter growing Chinese influence in Latin America.

On Christmas Day, Trump posted on social media that the "wonderful soldiers of China" were "lovingly, but illegally, operating the Panama Canal" - a claim which was swiftly denied by officials in Panama City and Beijing.

In recent weeks, when he was President-elect Donald Trump publicly said that Panama should return the Panama Canal to the United States, and he would not rule out using military force to reclaim it. At his presidential Inauguration on Monday Trump doubled down on saying that his new administration was going to take back the canal.