Turns out the Trump org has a hotel they manage in Panama. in 2019 the Panamanian company they're in business with sued Trumps company for both tax and social securities fraud.They're supposed to pay 12.5% taxes, but didn't, for several years. They also intentionally undercounted the number of employees at the hotel to avoid the company portion of the social security taxes. The money, fees and penalties were now worth millions of dollars. Eventually the Panama government went after the other company to pay the money since Trumps company wasn't doing it.
So that company sued Trumps company in 2019 to get reimbursed for the money and to either require them to pay up in the future, or to cancel the contract so they were no longer in business with Trump.
IT's now 2024 almost 2025 and Trump still hasn't settled the case, and some people are speculating the reason Trump is now joking about buying the panama canal might actually be because he wants to pressure the Panamanian Government into dropping the taxes and social security case, leveraging his becoming POTUS again to threaten them into just waving all the fees.
It also turns out that in court in NY, when the Trump org was on trial there for accounting and tax fraud, they gave sworn testimony to the court and the judge asserting their innocence and stating they did not as a company intentionally dodge taxes etc as a business practice, intentionally not disclosing the case in Panama.
So in theory if Panama drops the whole thing it not only gets Trump off the hook for the money, it would avoid the court in NY citing the Panama case as proof Trumps company lied under oath in the trial.