PANAMA CITY, Panama (AFP) — Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino on Thursday ruled out negotiations with Donald Trump over control of the Panama Canal, which the US president-elect threatened to demand be returned to Washington.

Mulino also rejected the possibility of reducing canal tolls for US vessels and denied that China had any influence over the vital waterway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

“If there is an intention to talk, then there’s nothing to talk about,” Mulino told a weekly press conference.

“The canal is Panamanian and belongs to Panamanians. There’s no possibility of opening any kind of conversation around this reality, which has cost the country blood, sweat, and tears,” he added.

The canal, inaugurated in 1914, was built by the United States but handed over to Panama on December 31, 1999 under treaties signed some two decades earlier by then-US President Jimmy Carter and Panamanian nationalist leader Omar Torrijos.

Trump on Saturday slammed what he called unfair fees for US ships passing through the canal and hinted at China’s growing influence.

If Panama could not ensure “the secure, efficient, and reliable operation” of the channel, “then we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to us, in full, and without question,” he said.

Mulino said the usage fees were “not set at the whim of the president or the administrator” of the interoceanic waterway but under a long-established “public and open process”.

He added, “There is absolutely no Chinese interference or participation in anything to do with the Panama Canal.”

On Tuesday, dozens of demonstrators gathered outside the US Embassy in Panama City chanting, “Trump, animal, leave the canal alone!” and burnt an image of the incoming American president.