Republicans hoping to thwart Beijing’s influence in Latin America are urging the Panamanian government to cut ties with Chinese entities.

The new Secretary of State already has said the Hong Kong-based operator of Panama Canal-adjacent ports could be a "big national security and defense problem."

Panama will be one of the first stops for new Secretary of State Marco Rubio as he heads overseas late next week

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.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s insistence that he wants to have the Panama Canal back under U.S. control is feeding nationalist sentiment and worry in Panama, home to the critical trade route and a country familiar with U.

They say they fought too hard to wrest it from the U.S. to now hand back the waterway, which is part of the nation’s identity.

The canal, which was once owned by the United States but was handed over to Panama decades ago, gives vessels a much shorter route between the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. While the two countries could end up resolving the issue,