The President of Panama, José Raúl Mulino, on Thursday lashed out at environmentalists who oppose a possible reopening of a Canadian‑owned open‑pit copper mine, whose operations were halted by the courts in 2023. A week ago, Mulino authorized Cobre Panamá — the Panamanian subsidiary of Canada’s First Quantum Minerals — to export the copper concentrate it had already extracted at its Caribbean‑coast mine. That decision prompted the company to suspend an arbitration seeking $20 billion in compensation.
“Goodbye to the mine… because five freeloaders who don’t pay a payroll don’t want a mine?” Mulino asked at a press conference, provoking outrage among environmentalists who organized protests against the mine in 2023, accusing it of environmental harm. Lilian Guevara of the “Panama Is Worth More Without Mining” collective said such statements from the country’s leaders show they are not acting objectively but taking sides. “Is he the representative of a mining company or is he the president?” she added.
Five weeks of street protests in 2023 nearly paralyzed Panama, after which the Supreme Court ordered the mine’s suspension in November, ruling its concession contract “unconstitutional.” Mulino said reopening the mine is not a settled issue and that he plans to pursue an “intelligent negotiation” with First Quantum to reduce its claims to zero. “While those arbitrations are suspended—or soon will be—the Panamanian State faces a potential liability of over $20 billion in claims,” the right‑wing president warned.
“For me, mining is a critically important issue in the country’s current economic context, especially for job creation,” he emphasized. The mine, which began operations in 2019, produced 300,000 tones of copper concentrate annually—accounting for 75% of Panama’s exports and 5% of its GDP. In 2023 the mining group paid $567 million in royalties and had become one of Panama’s largest employers, with over 7,000 direct jobs (most now terminated) and more than 30,000 indirectly linked positions.
