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It warned that the part of the Channel was "a particularly dangerous sector, especially in the middle of winter for precarious and overloaded boats", as it was a busy shipping lane with difficult weather conditions.

Last weekend, Trump shared plans on Truth Social to take over the shipping lane, adding that Panama would be forced to “return” the canal if it didn’t meet his demands.

Fewer boats and fewer engines, it seems, now encounter ongoing vast demand to attempt a crossing – and so do so with more people in each boat, often with inadequate power to cross the busiest shipping lane in the world.

More than 20 people have died this year attempting to cross the world’s busiest shipping lane in dangerously overloaded dinghies.

The shipping lane bends west at Victoria to exit the Salish Sea through the Strait of Juan de Fuca, passing Port Angeles and Neah Bay, Washington, on the way out to the Pacific Ocean.