Trump Wants to Bring Back the American Imperium
It may not surprise you that Trump mangled his facts about Panama, overstating by more than 600 percent the number of Americans who died building the Canal (only some of them from malaria). Indeed, if we based sovereignty on the sacrifice in lives building the Panama Canal, then the waterway would rightfully belong to France, which began construction in 1881 and abandoned the project to the United States seven years later after losing about 20,000 workers. Nous l’avons acheté, nous l’avons payé, c’est à nous !
Moreover, Carter never “gave away” the Canal because the Canal never belonged to the United States, a point Carter explained in a February 1978 address to the nation. “We have never had sovereignty over it,” Carter said. The United States never “bought” the Canal, but rather rented it and the surrounding Canal Zone from Panama, paying annually for the privilege. All the 1978 treaty did was cancel the lease while granting the United States the right to intervene militarily should any nation threaten the Canal’s neutrality—a neutrality under threat, the BBC’s Mark Wendling and Jake Horton pointed out this week, only from the United States itself. After Panama’s president, José Raúl Mulino, replied to Trump that “Every square meter of the Panama Canal … belongs to Panama and will continue to belong to Panama,” Trump reposted it with the comment, “We’ll see about that!”
Panama charges ships $400,000 to traverse the canal. That’s hardly ruinous for the multibillion-dollar shippers and suppliers that use it. Transit slowed in recent years because drought lowered water levels in the Canal, in turn reducing the number of ships that could pass through. That in turn led to supply-chain-disrupting traffic jams; in August 2023 the number of vessels waiting to pass through reached 160, delaying passage by as much as 21 days. Panama started auctioning off rights to jump the queue, which doubled the cost of transit for shippers that availed themselves of this short cut. It wouldn’t astonish me to learn that the Central American nation has taken economic advantage of the situation, but Trump’s complaint is a bit rich coming from the guy who sells $60 “God Bless the USA” Bibles. (The “Inaugural Edition” will set you back $70.) In any event, Trump is bluffing. We aren’t going to invade.
