94Ha Viewpoint
US President Trump clearly has no intention of pursuing a policy of good-neighborliness and friendship. Trump has been mocking Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, calling him “governor” and declaring that the country of 40 million people should become the 51st state of the United States. After his first phone call with Mexico’s new President Emmanuel Macron, the latter had to politely state that she had not agreed to all the conditions that Trump claimed she had agreed to.
Now, Trump is trying to stir up a debate over control of the Panama Canal, an issue that was settled 50 years ago. However, Trump’s remarks echoed the strong sentiment that has long been the underlying tone of U.S. policy on this issue. After all, the construction of the Panama Canal was an American idea, the brainchild of President Theodore Roosevelt in the early 20th century, and the United States has found it difficult to let go ever since.
About 5% of the world’s cargo trade and 40% of the United States’ container shipping pass through the Panama Canal. But the 82-kilometer-long canal, which crosses the Isthmus of Panama and connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, has been caught up in the increasingly fierce geopolitical and geo-economic confrontation between China and the United States. Trump has claimed that the United States will take back control of the canal in the face of China’s alleged growing influence in Panama. The statement shocked many, especially Panamanians who saw it as a blatant violation of their sovereignty.
Yet, throughout Panama’s history, sovereignty has been a concept that can be manipulated at will. At the time, faced with the remnants of the Spanish Empire in the Americas, Roosevelt believed it was necessary to establish a trade route between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to avoid detouring through South America. There were two options at the time: go through Nicaragua or Colombia. The latter proved easier to achieve, but the United States had to resort to some tricks.
The Roosevelt administration supported a faction that sought to secede from Colombia, thereby creating the new nation of Panama, from which the United States could implement the president’s favorite projects. In 1903, the United States obtained the authority to build the canal and “permanently” control the Panama Canal Zone in exchange for an annual payment to Panama.
The occupation of Panama and the construction of the canal were not only about a strategic trade route. “Whenever I can set a precedent of the power of the executive branch, as I did … by taking Panama … I feel not only that my action was justified in itself, but that by demonstrating or endowing the executive branch with power I have set a valuable precedent,” Roosevelt wrote to Sir George Otto Trevelyan.
In his memoirs, Roosevelt acknowledged that he “regretted” the use of force to violate Colombia’s sovereignty, but the United States never formally apologized or offered compensation. The 1914 version of the Thomson-Urrutia Treaty expressed the United States’ “sincere apologies for all events which have interrupted or damaged relations with Colombia.” But Roosevelt’s continued resistance to such an official statement, coupled with support from U.S. officials such as Secretary of State John Hay (a supporter of the previous president’s Panama operation), delayed the treaty’s ratification. It wasn’t until 1921 that the Senate ratified the treaty, but it deleted the offending passages and offered only compensation, without an apology or explicit admission of wrongdoing.
Tensions over the Canal Zone continued for decades. By the 1960s, Panama’s resentment of U.S. influence in Latin America grew, culminating in the brief suspension of diplomatic relations between the two countries in 1964.
Since then, the issue has plagued more than one US administration. In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson pledged a new agreement with Panama after consulting with two former presidents, Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower. The deal was ultimately reached after 14 years of bipartisan negotiations under two Democratic and two Republican presidents. Eventually, Jimmy Carter decided it was time to hand over the canal to Panama and correct the injustice done to the region.
“The most important and only reason to ratify treaties is that they are in America’s highest national interest and will strengthen our place in the world,” he told Americans in a nationally televised address. “Our security interests will be enhanced. Our trading opportunities will be improved. We will have demonstrated that as a large and powerful nation we are able to treat a smaller but dignified sovereign with fairness and honor.”
However, even though President Carter pushed hard for the treaty to be ratified, it took months to successfully overcome opposition from the American public and Congress. Ultimately, the United States and Panama’s General Omar Torrijos reached an agreement in 1977 to transfer control of the waterway to that country.
However, there are some important fine print. One of the two treaties signed by the two countries clearly stipulates that the United States remains responsible for the security of the canal and has the right to use force to defend the canal’s neutrality. In fact, the United States permanently retained the right to defend the canal. The treaty stipulated that the Canal Zone would be transferred to Panama in 1979, with the transfer of operational rights to be completed in 1999. A year later, the Senate narrowly ratified the Torrijos–Carter Treaty, and the United States continued to operate the canal until December 1999.
In light of this history, Trump’s recent comments may be shocking, but they are not surprising. As Trump considers what to do next regarding the Panama Canal, the question we should ask is whether the United States is truly willing to give it up.
