Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino on Thursday rejected U.S. claims that American warships and boats can transit the Panama Canal without paying a standard fee. In a weekly news conference, Mulino disputed a statement from the State Department on free transit after Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s visit to Panama earlier this week.

Panama's president says the State Department's claim of an agreement granting U.S. warships free canal passage was "based on a falsity. And that's intolerable."

Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino on Thursday denied the U.S. State Department’s claim that his country had reached a deal allowing U.S. warships to transit the Panama Canal for free.