How the US-China tussle over the Panama Canal is impacting strange residents | USAEMALL.com

CK Hutchinson’s deal with BlackRock was ultimately not signed last week as planned, after China announced an antitrust review of the agreement.

Analysts said Beijing’s diplomatic victory over the Panama Canal will likely motivate the Trump administration to repeat the stunt.

Meanwhile, one expert predicted that 20 to 30 countries could follow Panama in dropping out of the Belt and Road Initiative within the next year.

“What’s important are the politics and the optics,” said Eric Olander, editor-in-chief of The China-Global South Project.

“One cannot overstate how important this is – that forcing a country to withdraw from BRI, and seeing the reaction that Trump and (US Secretary of State) Marco Rubio got in the United States among their base, is going to motivate them to (force) dozens of other countries (to also withdraw from BRI).”

Olander added that “vulnerable countries” will have to decide whether to be in China’s or America’s “sphere of influence”.

Still, he said this would not detract from the BRI’s longer-term strategy.

“It just means they have to recalibrate in a much more contentious environment. The first and foremost priority for (Chinese President) Xi Jinping today is protecting the domestic economy,” he noted.

“He’s got to keep that domestic economy moving forward, and so I think the US-China relationship is more important than the China-Panama relationship. So, they’re kind of going to let Panama go.”