Trinidad and To­ba­go and Guyana have joined with the Unit­ed States and three oth­er coun­tries in sup­port of Pana­ma’s sov­er­eign­ty, amid con­cerns over what has been de­scribed as tar­get­ed eco­nom­ic pres­sure linked to Chi­na.

In a joint state­ment is­sued by US State De­part­ment, re­ceived ex­clu­sive­ly by Guardian Me­dia, the gov­ern­ments of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Guyana, Bo­livia, Cos­ta Ri­ca, Paraguay and the Unit­ed States un­der­scored a com­mit­ment to re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty and co­op­er­a­tion, de­clar­ing that “the free­dom of our re­gion is non-ne­go­tiable.”

The coun­tries list­ed in the state­ment are all part of the re­cent­ly formed Shield of the Amer­i­c­as.