AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

Foreign policy wasn’t the main focus of President Trump’s address Tuesday night, but he did once again threaten to annex the Panama Canal. He said he already started.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: To further enhance our national security, my administration will be reclaiming the Panama Canal, and we’ve already started doing it. Just today, a large American company announced they are buying both ports around the Panama Canal and lots of other things having to do with the Panama Canal and a couple of other canals. The Panama Canal was built by Americans for Americans, not for others. But others could use it. But it was built at tremendous cost of American blood and treasure. Thirty-eight thousand workers died building the Panama Canal. They died of malaria. They died of snakebites and mosquitoes.

AMY GOODMAN: President Trump Tuesday night once again talked about Panama. He talked about Panama. And again, in addressing in his Tuesday night address, I wanted to ask you, Juan, if you could talk about what he said, what he reiterated, the points that he made, as we hear that BlackRock, the corporate giant, is leading a consortium — that’s what he was referring to. BlackRock said it would lead a consortium to purchase two Panama Canal ports from a Hong Kong-based conglomerate. You’ve discussed all this before, Juan. You spent time in Panama. You were there when President George H.W. Bush invaded, led troops invading Panama. Talk about the significance of what he’s saying.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Amy, no matter how many times you repeat a lie, it still doesn’t make it true. The fact is that during the construction of the canal from 1904 to 1914, it wasn’t 38,000 people who died. It was a far smaller number of people, 5,600 people, who died. And most of those people were not Americans. They were Black West Indian laborers who were imported by the Panama Canal Company to do most of the construction. Only about 350 white Americans died in the construction of the canal. That’s about a hundred times less than what Trump is claiming. He’s trying to include in there the fact that there was a first attempt to build the canal by a French company in the 1880s where tens of thousands of workers died in that failed effort to build the canal. But also, most of those workers were West Indians, largely from Barbados. So the real bloodshed in building the Panama Canal was workers from the Caribbean islands.

And now, as you mentioned, comes the news that BlackRock, one of the world’s largest private equity firms, its CEO Larry Fink is spending $23 billion not just on the two Panama ports of CK Hutchison, but a bunch of other ports that this Hong Kong company owns around the world. And this is an example of the Panamanian government, which is a conservative government, basically currying favor with Trump, and at the same time Larry Fink and BlackStone currying favor with Trump, because they’ve been under a lot of criticism from right-wing groups because of their emphasis on socially responsible environmental investments, and they’re trying to clean up their act as far as the MAGA supporters are concerned. So, it’s really outrageous how Trump continues to repeat this lie of all the blood that Americans shed in building the Panama Canal.