Panama has reportedly submitted a formal letter to the U.N. rejecting Trump's statement about reclaiming the canal. The country's President José Raúl Mulino said in the letter, dated January 20, that the canal "is and will continue to be Panama's," the New York Times reported.

More than 100 years after the construction of the engineering marvel that linked the Atlantic and Pacific oceans — and 25 years after the canal was returned to Panama by the US — the Panama Canal faces renewed intimidation from US President Donald Trump.

In recent weeks, when he was President-elect Donald Trump publicly said that Panama should return the Panama Canal to the United States, and he would not rule out using military force to reclaim it. At his presidential Inauguration on Monday Trump doubled down on saying that his new administration was going to take back the canal.

Newly sworn-in President Donald Trump vowed on Monday that the United States would take back the Panama Canal as he delivered an inauguration speech in which he invoked the 19th century expansionist doctrine of "Manifest Destiny" in laying out plans for space exploration.

Panama has alerted the United Nations - in a letter seen by Reuters on Tuesday - to U.S. President Donald Trump's remarks during his inauguration speech, when he vowed that the United States would take back the Panama Canal.

In his inaugural address, President Donald Trump reiterated threats he has made about the Panama Canal, claiming, "we're taking it back." He'd previously declared that the rates Panama charges for access to the Panama Canal violated the “magnanimous gesture” the U.

Some Panamanians saw Trump's remarks as a way of applying pressure on Panama for something else he wants: better control of migration through the Darien Gap.