Panama denied a claim made by the State Department on Wednesday that the Central American nation had agreed to no longer charge fees for US government ships to transit the country’s famous canal.

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."

The Panamanian government swiftly shut down a claim by the U.S. State Department that American government ships would no longer have to pay fees to transit the Panama Canal, CNN reports. In a statement,