“It’s impossible, I can’t negotiate,” Mulino said Thursday. “The canal belongs to Panama.”

Yet Rubio said he will make clear Trump’s intent. In an interview Thursday with SiriusXM host Megyn Kelly, he said Trump’s desire to retake control of the Panama Canal is driven by legitimate national security interests stemming from growing concerns about Chinese activity and influence in Latin America.

“We’re going to address that topic,” he said. “The president’s been pretty clear he wants to administer the canal again. Obviously, the Panamanians are not big fans of that idea. That message has been brought very clear.”

Chinese investments in ports and other infrastructure and facilities at both the Pacific and Caribbean ends of the canal are a cause for major concern, leaving Panama and the critical shipping route vulnerable to China, he said.

Rubio added that “if China wanted to obstruct traffic in the Panama Canal, they could,” and that would be a violation of the 1977 treaty signed by former President Jimmy Carter under which the U.S. later ceded control.

Despite Mulino’s rejection of any negotiation over ownership, some believe Panama may be open to a compromise under which canal operations on both sides are taken away from the Hong Kong-based Hutchison Ports company that was given a 25-year no-bid extension to run them. An audit into the suitability of that extension is already under way and could lead to a rebidding process.

What is unclear is whether Trump would accept the transfer of the concession to an American or European firm as meeting his demands, which appear to cover more than just operations.

“In some ways, Trump is pushing on an open door,” said Ryan Berg, director of the Americas program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. “But it will depend on how his red lines are defined.”

“There’s been a lot of heavy rhetoric and it will be up Rubio to clarify it,” Berg said, adding that some kind of compromise was possible “but we’ll have to see if he’s really serious about taking it back. If that’s the case then nothing short of that will satisfy him.”

Rubio arrived in Panama on Saturday for meetings the following day with Mulino and the canal administrator. He will then travel to El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic.

His arrival comes just a day after the U.S. resumed visa processing at its embassy in Bogota, Colombia, which had been shut down Sunday after the Colombian government refused to accept two planeloads of Colombian deportees from the United States.

Previous secretaries of state have often traveled abroad with so-called “deliverables” — assistance packages, new cooperation initiatives and the like — that they can announce at each stop. However, such as with Colombia, Rubio may only be able to bring limited relief from a U.S. freeze on foreign assistance that Trump ordered pending a review of all programs.

In Latin America, such programs have generally focused on policing, counternarcotics operations and efforts to stem illegal migration. Rubio has made provisions for certain programs offering life-saving assistance to be exempted from the funding pause, and waiver applications for programs in several of the countries he will be visiting are under review.

Among the countries for which waivers for certain programs have been submitted are Panama, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic and its neighbor, Haiti. Although Rubio will not be traveling to Haiti, the State Department has already allowed some $41 million in support of an international peacekeeping force there to go ahead.

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Republished with permission of The Associated Press.

Tropical plant enthusiasts and businesses from across the world descended on Fort Lauderdale last week to take part in some of the most  sophisticated developments in the industry.

The 2025 Tropical Plant International Expo (TPIE) was held at the Broward County Convention Center as some 7,400 professionals from the nursery and landscape industry converged on the event. The exposition showcased plant cultivation developments, trends and additional products designed to grow tropical plants.

“TPIE is where plant professionals from all over the world converge to make important connections, learn what’s trending, and experience plants and products,” said Tal Coley, chief executive officer of the Florida Nursery, Growers and Landscape Association (FNGLA), which organized the event. “This industry trade event is truly an international marketplace.”

The event is considered the largest gathering of the tropical plant industry on the planet. Experts lead discussions and networking opportunities with exhibitions, seminars and booths displaying products. The event this year covered some 227,000-square-feet of exhibit space in the convention center in Fort Lauderdale. There were more than 1,000 exhibits during the expo with more than 420 companies taking part in the event that lasted most of the last week of January.

This year’s expo also featured a speech from filmmaker Brett Culp, who outlined methods that accelerate business performance and connections in the tropical plant industry.

The FNGLA also presented honors to participants who had the top exhibits during the event. Those winners included:

— 305 Farms

— Florida Tropiculture Inc.

— CTI Living

— Vina Planters

— The Plant Company/Leafjoy/PW

— Market Botany

— Deroma-Marshall Pottery

— Westbrook Greenhouses

— LiveTrends Design Group

— Penang Nursery

— ForemostCo, Inc.

— The Farmer’s Daughter

A special “Cool Product”  category was established and winners in that category included:

— Grant’s Farm Nursery

— The Plant Company

— Drain Drawer Pots, Inc.

— Mossify

— Flori-Design Nursery

— Treleaf

— Living Colors Nursery, Inc.

— R & D Nurseries, Inc.

— PlantDoc

— ForemostCo, Inc.

The FNGLA represents Florida’s industry that generates about $31 billion in sales and employs about 266,000 people in the state.

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