Teddy Roosevelt once declared the Panama Canal “one of the
feats to which the people of this republic will look back with the highest
pride.” More than a century later, Donald Trump is threatening to
take back the waterway for the same republic.
The president-elect is decrying increased fees Panama
has imposed to use the waterway linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. He
says if things don’t change after he takes office next month, “We will demand
that the Panama Canal be returned to the United States of America, in full,
quickly and without question.”
Trump has long threatened allies with punitive action in
hopes of winning concessions. But experts in both countries are clear, unless
he goes to war with Panama, Trump can’t reassert control over a canal the US
agreed to cede in the 1970s.
What is
the canal?
It is a man-made waterway that uses a series of locks and
reservoirs over 51 miles (82 kilometers) to cut through the middle of Panama
and connect the Atlantic and Pacific. It spares ships having to go an
additional roughly 7,000 miles (more than 11,000 kilometers) to sail around
Cape Horn at South America’s southern tip.
The US International Trade Administration says the canal
saves American business interests “considerable time and fuel costs” and
enables faster delivery of goods, which is “particularly significant for time
sensitive cargoes, perishable goods, and industries with just-in-time supply
chains.”
Who
built it?
An effort to establish a canal through Panama led by
Ferdinand de Lesseps, who built Egypt’s Suez Canal, began in 1880 but
progressed little over nine years before going bankrupt.
Malaria, yellow fever and other tropical diseases devastated
a workforce already struggling with especially dangerous terrain and harsh
working conditions in the jungle, eventually costing more than 20,000 lives, by
some estimates.
Panama was then a province of Colombia, which refused to
ratify a subsequent 1901 treaty licensing US interests to build the canal.
Roosevelt responded by dispatching US warships to Panama’s Atlantic and Pacific
coasts. The US also prewrote a constitution that would be ready after
Panamanian independence, giving American forces “the right to intervene in any
part of Panama, to re-establish public peace and constitutional order.”
In part because Colombian troops were unable to traverse
harsh jungles, Panama declared an effectively bloodless independence within
hours in November 1903. It soon signed a treaty allowing a US-led team to
begin construction.
Some 5,600 workers died later during the US-led construction
project, according to one study.
Why
doesn’t the US control the canal anymore?
The waterway opened in 1914, but almost immediately some
Panamanians began questioning the validity of US control, leading to what
became known in the country as the “generational struggle” to take it over.
The US abrogated its right to intervene in Panama in the
1930s. By the 1970s, with its administrative costs sharply increasing,
Washington spent years negotiating with Panama to cede control of the waterway.
The Carter administration worked with the government of Omar
Torrijos. The two sides eventually decided that their best chance for
ratification was to submit two treaties to the US Senate, the “Permanent
Neutrality Treaty” and the “Panama Canal Treaty.”
The first, which continues in perpetuity, gives the US the
right to act to ensure the canal remains open and secure. The second stated
that the US would turn over the canal to Panama on December 31, 1999, and was
terminated then.
Both were signed in 1977 and ratified the following year.
The agreements held even after 1989, when President George H.W. Bush invaded
Panama to remove Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega.
In the late 1970s, as the handover treaties were being
discussed and ratified, polls found that about half of Americans opposed the
decision to cede canal control to Panama. However, by the time ownership
actually changed in 1999, public opinion had shifted, with about half of
Americans in favor.
What’s
happened since then?
Administration of the canal has been more efficient under
Panama than during the US era, with traffic increasing 17% between fiscal
years 1999 and 2004. Panama’s voters approved a 2006 referendum authorizing a
major expansion of the canal to accommodate larger modern cargo ships. The
expansion took until 2016 and cost more than US$5.2 billion.
Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino said in a
video Sunday, “Every square meter of the canal belongs to Panama and will
continue to.” He added that, while his country’s people are divided on some key
issues, when it comes to our canal, and our sovereignty, we will all unite
under our Panamanian flag.
Shipping prices have increased because of droughts last year
affecting the canal locks, forcing Panama to drastically cut shipping traffic
through the canal and raise rates to use it. Though the rains have mostly
returned, Panama says future fee increases might be necessary as it undertakes
improvements to accommodate modern shipping needs.
Mulino said fees to use the canal are “not set on a whim.”
Jorge Luis Quijano, who served as the waterway’s
administrator from 2014 to 2019, said all canal users are subject to the same
fees, though they vary by ship size and other factors.
“I can accept that the canal’s customers may complain about
any price increase,” Quijano said. “But that does not give them reason to
consider taking it back.”
Why has
Trump raised this?
The president-elect says the US is getting “ripped off” and
“I’m not going to stand for it.”
“It was given to Panama and to the people of Panama, but it
has provisions — you’ve got to treat us fairly. And they haven’t treated us
fairly,” Trump said of the 1977 treaty that he said “foolishly” gave the canal
away.
The neutrality treaty does give the US the right to act if
the canal’s operation is threatened due to military conflict — but not to
reassert control.
“There’s no clause of any kind in the neutrality agreement
that allows for the taking back of the canal,” Quijano said. “Legally, there’s no
way, under normal circumstances, to recover territory that was used
previously.”
Trump, meanwhile, hasn’t said how he might make good on his
threat.
“There’s very little wiggle room, absent a second US invasion
of Panama, to retake control of the Panama Canal in practical terms,” said
Benjamin Gedan, director of the Latin America Program at the Woodrow Wilson
International Center for Scholars in Washington.
Gedan said Trump’s stance is especially baffling given that
Mulino is a pro-business conservative who has “made lots of other overtures to
show that he would prefer a special relationship with the United States.” He
also noted that Panama in recent years has moved closer to China, meaning the
US has strategic reasons to keep its relationship with the Central American
nation friendly.
Panama is also a US partner on stopping illegal immigration
from South America — perhaps Trump’s biggest policy priority.
“If you’re going to pick a fight with Panama on an issue,”
Gedan said, “you could not find a worse one than the canal.”
Courtesy: Associated Press
