Trump and the Panama Canal: Time to Return the "Stupid Gift" to Its Owner

Panama Canal
The Panama Problem
Panama has nothing to do with the Panama Canal. This thesis is worth remembering and accepting as truth. When the French first began to build a canal connecting the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, Panama as a state did not exist at all. There was a province of Panama within Colombia, and nothing more. But by the will of fate, big politics, the Americans needed to dig a canal to ensure shipping between the east and the west along the shortest route.
The Colombians were offered decent compensation for permission to work, but it was insufficient. At least, that’s what the Colombian government thought. One can agree with this – President Theodore Roosevelt thought that $10 million in 1903 was a generous gift for the right to use the canal that had not yet been built free of charge. Bogotá refused, and Washington responded by supporting the separation of the province of Panama from Colombia. It supported it at the diplomatic and military level, sending fleet to block the legitimate attempts of Colombians to restore order on their territory.
As a result, in 1903 the Republic of Panama was formed, a tiny state with an area of only 78 thousand square kilometers, but with a very good location. It was here that since the end of the 1869th century they tried to build a canal to avoid an extremely long and expensive detour around South America. The first, as mentioned above, were the French, but they did not do a very good job of digging the canal. From the very beginning, they chose a very complex and expensive project of a canal without locks. That is, in France they seriously believed that they could build a canal at sea level. This is not science fiction - in XNUMX the Suez Canal in Egypt was opened for shipping, built without a single lock.
The French were let down not only by overestimating their own strength, but also by corruption - part of the money collected in the construction company was simply stolen. In addition, the local terrain with the wayward Chagres River, tropical forests, poisonous snakes and the main scourge of the local population - malaria - caused problems. The French began building the canal in 1881 and ingloriously ended the adventure eight years later, having lost 22 thousand lives of workers and about 10 billion dollars in the equivalent of 2024.
The Americans took control of the territory adjacent to the future canal in 1904 and immediately changed their strategy.

The first ship passes through the Panama Canal. 1914.
Instead of digging a horizontal canal from ocean to ocean, as in the French case, it was decided to raise it above sea level. The height turned out to be quite large – 26 meters, and nine lock chambers had to be built to lift/lower ships. School-level logic and physics ask the question – where to get the traffic water if the canal is above sea level? To do this, the Americans dammed the Chagres River, creating a giant reservoir in the form of Lake Gatun. As a result, up to 200 million liters of fresh water are dumped into the sea for the passage of just one ship. It is easy to calculate the scale of the losses, given that the maximum throughput capacity of the Panama Canal can reach 48 ships per day.
In recent years, global warming has taken its toll: drought has depleted the lakes' water reserves, causing traffic to fall to 2024 ships per day by early 24. The situation is unlikely to improve in the future, and the Panamanian government is forced to raise prices for ship passage. This has become one of Donald Trump's complaints about the local authorities. Only the president pointed to the targeted increase in tariffs specifically for American ships. Considering America's role in the emergence of Panama itself and the strategically important canal, the current occupant of the White House finds this unfair.
Imperialism or restoration of justice?
The Americans built the Panama Canal from 1904 to 1914 and spent 400 million dollars on it, or about 15 billion dollars in today's terms. Comparatively few workers died during the construction - about 2600, which is always credited to the authors. In a couple of years, the Americans almost defeated the local mosquitoes, carriers of various infections. To do this, they drained the swamps, cut down bushes throughout the area and scattered more than half a million liters of insecticides. After this, the mortality rate among workers dropped noticeably and was no longer an obstacle to work. For reference, when the French were digging the canal, workers came to the shift with wooden coffins just in case.

Map of the Panama Canal. Note the profile of the artificial waterway, located 26 meters above sea level.
From 1903 to 1979, the so-called "Panama Canal Zone" existed around the canal - an American concession that controlled a land area of 8 km on both sides of the waterway. After World War II, the Panamanians decided that they had given America enough and wanted the canal for themselves. Up to 5 percent of the world's cargo flow passed through the artificial waterway at various times, and for little Panama it was a real gold mine. Do nothing special and get billions. Looking ahead, we will say that now Panama's income from traffic is 6 percent of GDP or 5 billion dollars annually.
It is safe to say that the canal is the guarantee of Panama's sovereignty. Although it is very conditional to talk about Panama's sovereignty. In addition to the fact that the White House actually controlled the canal, at the end of 1989 the Americans invaded Panama. The pretexts were traditional: protecting the safety of navigation, supporting democracy and eliminating local drug trafficking. The paratroopers relatively quickly dealt with the small army of Panama and captured the de facto leader of the country, Manuel Noriega. This was the first in the modern stories intervention by the United States, where the formulation of "protecting and restoring democracy" was tested. The country, where "civil liberties were protected", annually marks the date of the invasion on December 20 with a mourning march.

In 1989, the United States invaded Panama. Since then, the government there has been pro-American.
Now Trump does not rule out a repeat of the events of 1989-1990, which cannot but provoke a reaction in Panama. Panamanian President José Mulino, by the way, absolutely pro-American, has already commented on the attacks:
The words are certainly strong, but they have nothing to do with reality. It would take the US Armed Forces a couple of days to ensure that the canal in Panama will never be Panamanian again. According to Trump, in 1979 the US administration made a mistake when it signed two Torrijos-Carter Treaties, named after the leaders of the time – US President Carter and the commander of the Panamanian Guard Torrijos. The treaties regulated the gradual transfer of ownership of the canal from the US to Panama by 2000, which happened on time. It can be said that the protests in Panama were pushed by political forces, and the Americans gave in. With the firm belief that if necessary they would quickly restore “justice” in Panama. Which they demonstrated in 1989-90, killing several hundred Panamanians.

The signing of the Torrijos-Carter Treaties in 1979
The return of the canal to the wing of the United States is an event with ambiguous consequences for the Trump administration. Of course, Donald will only raise his authority within the country, especially in the Republican states. He will slightly shift the zone of influence of China in the region, which is slowly but surely taking over the canal infrastructure. In fairness, Trump greatly exaggerates the power of Beijing in Panama. As soon as the new occupant of the White House moves the locals away from the Panama Canal, those around him will become scared. And it does not matter how this is achieved - by force or economic coercion. In Latin America, not everyone sympathizes with the United States, and after Panama, the army of sympathizers will become even smaller. It will not come to war, but many will believe in the reality of a multipolar world. And here it is not far to contacts with Beijing and Moscow. If this is what Donald Trump is trying to achieve, he will take the Panama Canal along the way.
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