President-elect Donald Trump over the weekend suggested the US should retake the Panama Canal, an idea that was immediately rejected by the government of Panama, which has controlled the passage for decades.

The president-elect intends to push back on Beijing’s “growth and strategic footprint” in the Western Hemisphere, said Trump’s pick for Latin America special envoy.

The U.S. helped engineer Panama's independence from Colombia to build the canal, which opened in 1914. But it ceded control to Panama in 1999.