LatinNews Daily - 04 August 2026

*Panama has begun hosting the annual Panamax military training exercises involving 19 countries, with the exercises centring around the Panama Canal. According to a statement from Panama’s security ministry, the Panamax exercises involve Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, the US, Guatemala, Honduras, Peru, the Dominican Republic, Germany, Belize, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, El Salvador, the UK, Jamaica, Mexico, the Netherlands, and Paraguay. The exercises will involve over 1,700 personnel, including nearly 500 special forces troops, and will have maritime, aerial, land, and cyber components. Naval vessels will be deployed for simultaneous exercises off Panama’s Pacific and Caribbean coasts by seven countries (Colombia, Ecuador, the US, Mexico, the Netherlands, Panama, and the Dominican Republic), with the goal of “strengthening the interoperability of maritime forces”. The statement said that “the multinational presence in Panama reaffirms the country’s strategic role as a meeting point for continental security” and that “coordination between the armed forces of different countries enables the evaluation of reaction capacities in response to shared threats, and the protection of globally important critical infrastructure like the Panama Canal”.