The President's Daily Brief
PDB Afternoon Bulletin | March 5th, 2025: The US 'Reclaims' The Panama Canal & White House Designates Yemen's Houthis A Foreign Terrorist Organization
05 Mar 2025
In this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin: We'll kick things off with President Trump's address to Congress last night, where he declared that the U.S. is "reclaiming the Panama Canal." His statement comes as we learn that asset manager BlackRock has struck a billion dollar deal to place the canal's ports under U.S. control. Later in the show, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Tuesday that the Trump administration has officially designated the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels of Yemen as a foreign terrorist organization, reimposing a label that former President Joe Biden had lifted. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President’s Daily Brief by visiting PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Full Episode
It's Wednesday, 5 March. Welcome to the PDB Afternoon Bulletin. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed. We'll kick things off with President Trump's address to Congress last night. Did you catch that? Where he declared that the U.S. is, quote, reclaiming the Panama Canal.
His statement comes as we learn that the asset manager, BlackRock, has struck a billion-dollar deal to place the canal's ports under U.S. control.
Later in the show, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Tuesday that the Trump administration has officially designated the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels of Yemen as a foreign terrorist organization, reimposing a label that former President Biden had lifted during his administration. But first, today's afternoon spotlight.
We'll begin today with President Trump's address to a joint session of Congress Tuesday evening, where he touted his administration's rapid early moves to rein in government and reshape the geopolitical landscape. The speech largely focused on the Trump administration's achievements stateside, touching on his blitzkrieg of executive actions over the past six weeks.
the record drop in illegal migrant encounters at the US border, efforts to overhaul the federal workforce and cut fraud, and his quest to unleash American energy by slashing the regulatory state.
He framed his actions thus far as a, quote, common sense revolution, proclaiming, quote, America is back, though the speech drew regular jeers from Democrats, though that's surprising, some of whom walked out of the chamber in protest.
On the foreign policy front, Trump touted his use of tariffs to reshape America's economic relationship with our allies, asking the American people to bear with any economic turbulence that the policies may cause in the short term.
He also signaled his willingness to sign a minerals deal with Ukraine to accelerate an end to the war with Russia, and vowed to bring peace to the Middle East by expanding the Abraham Accords from his first term.
But I want to focus in on the President's remarks regarding the Panama Canal, which he's long said he intends to take back from the Panamanian government, citing the threat of China's growing influence at the canal's ports. For some context, the American-built canal has been solely controlled by the Panamanian government for 25 years, after the U.S.
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