Tom Bilyeu

You've got Balboa on the Pacific side, you've got Cristobal on the Atlantic, and together they handle about 40% of all the Panama Canal traffic.

And the positioning gave China a chokehold on the Western Hemisphere's most critical shipping lane.

Now, I hope that this idea of getting control of shipping lanes is starting to sound very familiar.

All of this stuff works in the globalized world, which has trade-offs, and it doesn't work as we begin to fragment once again, start getting into spheres of influence, start thinking of China first, America first, Japan first, England first, yada, yada, yada.

So brace yourselves for more of this.

When Trump came into office, he made kicking China out of those ports a priority, and it was a good idea.

By January of 2026, Panama's Supreme Court obliged, invalidating C.K.

Hutchison's entire agreement with the Panamanian government.

Panama handed interim control over to Maersk and MSC, which are U.S.-aligned firms, massive, massive on the global shipping industry.

And since March 8th, Chinese port authorities have detained nearly 70 Panama flagged vessels.

Now, they're not doing it because they actually think there are violations.

They're doing it because Panama is the world's largest ship registry.

A lot of foreign countries use the Panama flag.

So even though China is going after the U.S., quite frankly, but they're going via Panama to try and punish them.

15% of the global tonnage carries a Panamanian flag.

And so detaining Panama flag ships is how you strangle global trade if you're trying to be more elegant than Iran.

So Iran just blows shit up.

It's like, nope, sorry, you're not coming through here.

We're blowing up your boats.

And look, look at the pretty boats burning out in the water.