China's expanding footprint in Latin America is expected to be high on the agenda when US Secretary of State Marco Rubio visits Panama next week on his first overseas trip since taking office, according to observers.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Marco Rubio will make his first official trip abroad next week to Central America, including a stop in Panama, which President Donald Trump has riled with talk of trying to reclaim the Panama Canal.

President Trump’s push to take back control of the strategic waterway stokes memories of a period of U.S. imperial ambition and violence.

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.

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

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.

Panama President José Raúl Mulino has directly addressed President Donald Trump 's controversial comments regarding the Panama Canal, reaffirming that the waterway unequivocally belongs to Panama.

Russia’s foreign ministry has called on Trump to reaffirm the current international agreement surrounding the Panama Canal and to leave it in control of the nation of Panama.

Marco Rubio will pay his first trip as US secretary of state to Central American nations including Panama, where President Donald Trump has threatened to seize the Panama Canal, a spokeswoman said Thursday.

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.

Sixteen percent of poll respondents agree the U.S. should pressure Denmark into selling Greenland to the U.S. Twenty-nine percent said the U.S. should take control of the Panama Canal from Panama and 21% said they agreed with the statement that the U.S. has a right to expand its territory into the Western Hemisphere.