20250204 Balboa Port of Panama Canal, Xi, and Trump

Donald Trump's Panama Canal gambit rearranges the Asia-Pacific chessboard as Round 2 against Xi Jinping begins. (Nikkei montage/Source photos by Reuters)

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Katsuji Nakazawa is a Tokyo-based senior staff and editorial writer at Nikkei. He spent seven years in China as a correspondent and later as China bureau chief. He was the 2014 recipient of the Vaughn-Ueda International Journalist prize.

The U.S. threat to take back control of the Panama Canal and the resultant controversy have taken a new twist, with Panama announcing its withdrawal from the China-led Belt and Road Initiative.

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