Panama has been experiencing major mobilisations and is now under threat from Donald Trump. How are social movements responding?

Trump isn’t joking. His neoconservatism comes from the Reagan era, the president who won the election in the early 80s against Carter, claiming that Carter had surrendered the Panama Canal. Trump repeats the same lies over and over again. It’s a method for his electorate, but also an expression of power. Marco Rubio, US Secretary of State, has just said that he could establish a military base in the Darién jungle and build a concentration camp for migrants who will be brought from the United States by aircraft. Incarcerating people in another country is also a violation of migrants’ human rights; no human being is illegal.

How has the Panamanian government reacted to the threats?

An intelligent government - even a neoliberal one like the current administration - should end conflicts with Panama’s social movement and focus on preventing the canal from returning to US hands. But the current Panamanian government is of the same style as Jair Bolsonaro’s. Instead of using our country’s position on the UN Security Council to denounce the threats from the most important military power to the world, it dedicates itself to repressing the population whilst attempting to commit the theft of the century: removing 20 billion dollars from Social Security funds. This has put the population in profound disagreement with the government, which insists on raising the retirement age for women and reducing the value of pensions. The confrontation is total.

What political and social opposition exists to Trump’s plans?

There is much surprise in the country regarding Trump’s discourse. Some people repudiate it. But others say: “This time I won’t stand in the way of Panama’s oligarchy”. Why? Because the canal’s profits ended up in the hands of the Panamanian oligarchy and not those of the people. Here we have to fight simultaneously against the national oligarchy and against the American threat to recolonise the country. The most important process in Panama’s struggles was the challenge to the concession of Central America’s largest copper mine to a Canadian multinational, First Quantum. That struggle triumphed, which is quite rare in international terms.

In Portugal, we also have persistent popular movements in the interior of the country against lithium mining. What lessons come from your movement?

The fight against mining was a second moment of general mobilisation of society. The first occurred in 2022. In the first months, we began gathering different industrial trade union forces, as well as teachers and community movements, and built the United People’s Alliance for Life - a class front. At that time, we went to battle because medicines were very expensive, food was expensive, petrol had risen dramatically and triggered a social explosion against the Government. Teachers were on strike, we closed the streets daily to force the Government to sit with us. And we established one condition, that the negotiation would be televised. This happened and, two days later, the National Council of Private Companies and the Chambers of Employers were pressuring for censorship. They couldn’t bear to hear the names of those speculating with medicines and food, who exploit agricultural producers. Everything was televised. And everyone started following the negotiations as if they were a soap opera. We managed to increase the education budget to 7%, we managed to stop the petrol price increase. But we didn’t achieve other things; the Government delayed them.

It was in September 2023 that the mining issue emerged, which again sparked discontent from the previous year. There were confrontations with police throughout the country, the indigenous movement played a fundamental role, preventing transit in five different places along the Inter-American Highway, which unites the two Americas. Suddenly, the Government tried to impose the mining law in three days and there was a social explosion. The country took to the streets and there were unprecedented marches. Neighbourhoods set up barricades everywhere simultaneously, which prevented repression. The Supreme Court of Justice couldn’t withstand the pressure and decreed the mining law unconstitutional.

What mine is this? How did this problem arise?

This mine is in the middle of the Mesoamerican biological corridor. It devastated the jungles in a spectacular manner. It was initiated in the 90s and after 20 years, the Supreme Court decided for the first time that the mining law was unconstitutional. For the last eight years, the mine operated. It never paid anything to the State, but continued to function. And in 2023, the Government created a new law for the mine. But this time, with the masses in the streets, the Supreme Court took only two weeks - instead of twenty years - to declare it unconstitutional. The mine now doesn’t operate because its port is surrounded by artisanal fishermen, who prevent any ship from entering or leaving.

Was the agenda of this movement primarily ecological?

Closing the mine was important because it was environmentally dangerous, but also because it was theft from Panama. And also because there is much hatred against a government without legitimacy. The current government, newly elected, thinks it could return with a third attempt, but I don’t think so. If they do that, phosphorus will join petrol, because there are already mobilisations in Panama calling for a general strike to denounce Trump and oppose the Social Security privatisation law.

José Cambra is a leader of the Panama Teachers’ Association and the United People’s Alliance for Life. He was interviewed by Jorge Costa journalist and Leader of Portugal’s Left Bloc.