While in the Oval Office with Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela, President Donald Trump pat himself on the back for building the Panama Canal. “The Panama Canal is doing quite well. I think we did a good job building it,” Trump said. The United States got permission from Panama in 1904 to build the Canal and former President Jimmy Carter signed the Panama Canal Treaty and Neutrality Treaty, which gave control back to the Panamanians in 2000.

After facing a firestorm of comments throughout social media and the internet, President Trump responded that he “didn’t want to cause more controversy,” but, rather, to make his Panamanian counterpart “feel welcome” in the Oval Office. “We needed something to talk about, since Panama is not a significantly large or important country. As a matter of fact, other than drugs and drug lords, I’m not entirely sure if they export anything else to America. I mean, there’s the cigars, but Panamanian ones pale in comparison to the ones from Cuba.”

The president also told media outlets that he had “a very good reason for building the Canal.” “You know, in spite of everything I just said, Panama is still a very lovely country. The majority of it is undeveloped, it’s still under rain forests and there’s a lot of potential there. Also, geographically speaking, I’m told that it’s also very convenient for traffic and they’re currently controlling a lot of transportation through there. All in all, it’s a convenient little spot and I think our country could benefit significantly from having a presence there,” Trump said.

He also added, “And if you’re asking me if all this means I’m planning to colonize the country, well, let’s just say that’s still being debated. However, I do think that would be a smart move strategically because of all the reasons I just mentioned, plus, I’ve been down there several times, and I’ve grown quite fond of the area. It’s a really neat piece of land, the folks are very obedient and disciplined, I think they would make terrific employees. However, I lacked a way in; a reason to invite the Panamanian president here to talk about it, so I used my Canal.”

“Because, let’s face it – America is today not the greatest country in the world, objectively speaking. To many Americans, myself included, it still holds that title, but objectively, that’s not true,” the president opined. “We used to be great, but then the Chinese started messing things up, also the Japanese have always been at close second, the Russians, and we mustn’t forget the Scandinavians and Germans. All these guys have been steadily catching up to us and many of them have overtaken the lead.”

“The way to get back to number one is, we just have to look at the whole situation like it’s a war. If this was a war, the first thing we’d be trying to do is take back all the major transportation routes and roads, railroads, naval routes and so on. And that’s exactly what I’m trying to do for America by taking control of the Panama Canal, I’m making our country great again and all of a sudden, I’m faced with this much dissatisfaction? Something’s wrong here, and we need to fix it as soon as possible. In the meantime, I’ll focus on the Canal that I built, so that it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands,” Trump concluded.