OpenLife Nigeria reports that on Sunday, December 22, 2024, United States President-elect, Donald Trump said that his new administration will try and regain control of the Panama Canal.
The Panama Canal is an artificial 82-kilometer (51-mile) waterway in Panama, a country on the isthmus linking Central and South America.
Panama Canal connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean, cutting across the Isthmus of Panama, and is a conduit for maritime trade.
The Panama Canal shortcut greatly reduces the time for ships to travel between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, enabling them to avoid the lengthy, hazardous route around the southernmost tip of South America via the Drake Passage, the Strait of Magellan or the Beagle Channel.
It is one of the largest and most difficult engineering projects ever undertaken.
However, Trump’s statements has drawn rebuke from Panama President, Jose Raul Mulino.
In his statement, Trump highlighted the significance of Panama Canal to the United States.
What did Trump say?
Trump brought up the Panama Canal at AmericaFest, an annual event organised by conservative group Turning Point.
“We’re being ripped off at the Panama Canal like we’re being ripped off everywhere else,” he said at the Arizona event, adding that the US “foolishly gave it away”.
Following AmericaFest, Trump posted a picture on his Truth Social platform of the US flag flying over a narrow water body with the caption: “Welcome to the United States Canal!”
After Trump’s statement, he and Panamanian President Mulino traded barbs.
“Every square metre of the Panama Canal and the surrounding area belongs to Panama and will continue belonging to Panama,” Mulino said in a recorded statement published on his X account.
On Saturday in a Truth Social post, Trump also hinted at China’s growing influence over the Panama Canal. “It was solely for Panama to manage, not China, or anyone else,” he wrote. “We would and will NEVER let it fall into the wrong hands!”
However, available information indicates that China does not control the canal. However, a Hong Kong-based corporation, CK Hutchison Holdings has operated two of the canal’s ports, located on the Caribbean and Pacific entrances, since 1997.
In his Sunday statement on X, the President of Panama , Mulino, also said that China does not have influence over the Panama Canal. What is the dispute about?
The Panama Canal is a man-made water passage built on the Panama Isthmus, linking the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean.
Up to 14,000 ships traverse the canal annually. The waterway accounts for an estimated 2.5 percent of global sea trade and 40 percent of all US container traffic.
The canal is crucial to the US for importing goods from Asia. The US also uses the waterway to export commodities, including liquified natural gas.
Who built the canal?
The canal was built between 1904 and 1914, mostly by the US, with then-President Theodore Roosevelt overseeing the construction.
Who owns it?
The government of Panama owns the canal. When did Panama get ownership?
On December 31, 1999, the US handed over the ownership of the canal to Panama under a 1977 treaty signed by then-President Jimmy Carter.
“If the principles, both moral and legal, of this magnanimous gesture of giving are not followed, then we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to the United States of America, in full, quickly and without question,” Trump said.
The president-elect did not provide further details about how this would be possible.
History
The earliest record regarding a canal across the Isthmus of Panama was in 1534, when Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain, ordered a survey for a route through the Americas in order to ease the voyage for ships traveling between Spain and Peru.
The Spanish were seeking to gain a military advantage over the Portuguese.
In 1668, the English physician and philosopher Sir Thomas Browne speculated in his encyclopedic work, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, that “some Isthmus have been eaten through by the Sea, and others cut by the spade: And if the policy would permit, that of Panama in America were most worthy the attempt: it being but few miles over, and would open a shorter cut unto the East Indies and China.”
Given the strategic location of Panama, and the potential of its narrow isthmus separating two great oceans, other trade links in the area were attempted over the years.
One early example of this was the ill-fated Darien scheme, launched by the Kingdom of Scotland in 1698 to set up an overland trade route. Generally inhospitable conditions thwarted the effort, and it was abandoned in April 1700.
In 1788, Americans suggested that the Spanish should build the canal, since they controlled the colonies where it would be built.
They said that this would be a less treacherous route for ships than going around the southern tip of South America, and that tropical ocean currents would naturally widen the canal after construction.
During an expedition from 1788 to 1793, Alessandro Malaspina outlined plans for construction of a canal.
Numerous canals were built in other countries in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
The success of the Erie Canal through central New York in the United States in the 1820s and the collapse of the Spanish Empire in Latin America resulted in growing American interest in building an inter-oceanic canal.
Beginning in 1826, US officials began negotiations with Gran Colombia (present-day Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Panama), hoping to gain a concession to build a canal. Jealous of their newly gained independence and fearing domination by the more powerful United States, president Simón Bolívar and New Granada officials declined American offers.
After the collapse of Gran Colombia, New Granada remained unstable under constant government intrigue.
Great Britain
Great Britain attempted to develop a canal in 1843. According to the New-York Daily Tribune, 24 August 1843, Barings Bank of London and the Republic of New Granada entered into a contract for the construction of a canal across the Isthmus of Darien (Isthmus of Panama).
They referred to it as the Atlantic and Pacific Canal, and it was a wholly British endeavor. Projected for completion in five years, the plan was never carried out. At nearly the same time, other ideas were floated, including a canal (and/or a railroad) across Mexico’s Isthmus of Tehuantepec.
That did not develop, either.
In 1848, the discovery of gold in California, on the West Coast of the United States, generated renewed interest in a canal crossing between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
William Henry Aspinwall, who had won the federal subsidy to build and operate the Pacific mail steamships at around the same time, benefited from the gold discovery.
Aspinwall’s route included steamship legs from New York City to Panama, and from Panama to California, with an overland portage through Panama.
This route with an overland leg in Panama was soon frequently traveled, as it provided one of the fastest connections between San Francisco, California, and the East Coast cities, about 40 days’ transit in total.
Nearly all the gold that was shipped out of California went by the fast Panama route. Several new and larger paddle steamers were soon plying this new route, including private steamship lines owned by American entrepreneur Cornelius Vanderbilt that made use of an overland route through Nicaragua, and the unfortunate SS Central America.
In 1850, the United States began construction of the Panama Railroad (now called the Panama Railway) to cross the isthmus; it opened in 1855.
This overland link became a vital piece of Western Hemisphere infrastructure, greatly facilitating trade. The later canal route was constructed parallel to it, as it had helped clear dense forests.
An all-water route between the oceans was still the goal.
In 1855, William Kennish, a Manx-born engineer working for the United States government, surveyed the isthmus and issued a report on a route for a proposed Panama Canal.
His report was published as a book entitled The Practicability and Importance of a Ship Canal to Connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
In 1876, Lucien Napoléon Bonaparte Wyse and his chief assistant Armand Réclus, both officers and engineers of the French Navy, explored several routes in the Darien-Atrato regions and made proposals including the construction of tunnels and locks.
A second Isthmian exploratory visit began on 6 December 1877, where two routes were explored in Panama, the San Blas route and a route from Bahía Limón to Panama City, the current Canal route. The French had achieved success in building the Suez Canal in the Middle East.
While it was a lengthy project, they were encouraged to plan for a canal to cross the Panamanian isthmus.
Wyse went to Bogotá and on 20 March 1878, signed a treaty, in the name of the Société civile internationale du Canal interocéanique par l’isthme du Darien headed by general Étienne Türr, with the Colombian government, known as the Wyse concession, to build an interoceanic canal through Panama.
French construction attempts, 1881–1899
Ferdinand de Lesseps, the French originator of the Suez Canal and the Panama Canal
The first attempt to construct a canal through what was then Colombia’s province of Panama began on 1 January 1881.
The project was inspired by the diplomat Ferdinand de Lesseps, who was able to raise considerable funds in France as a result of the huge profits generated by his successful construction of the Suez Canal.
Although the Panama Canal needed to be only 40 percent as long as the Suez Canal, it was much more of an engineering challenge because of the combination of tropical rain forests, debilitating climate, the need for canal locks, and the lack of any ancient route to follow.
Lesseps wanted a sea-level canal (like the Suez), but he visited the site only a few times, during the dry season which lasts only four months of the year.
His men were unprepared for the rainy season, during which the Chagres River, where the canal started, became a raging torrent, rising up to 10 m (33 ft).
The dense jungle was alive with venomous snakes, insects, and spiders, but the worst challenges were yellow fever, malaria, and other tropical diseases, which killed thousands of workers; by 1884, the death rate was over 200 per month.
Public health measures were ineffective because the role of the mosquito as a disease vector was then unknown. Conditions were downplayed in France to avoid recruitment problems, but the high mortality rate made it difficult to maintain an experienced workforce.
Workers had to continually widen the main cut through the mountain at Culebra and reduce the angles of the slopes to minimize landslides into the canal.
Steam shovels were used in the construction of the canal, purchased from Bay City Industrial Works, a business owned by William L. Clements in Bay City, Michigan.[21] Bucket chain excavators manufactured by both Alphonse Couvreux and Wehyer & Richemond and Buette were also used.
Other mechanical and electrical equipment was limited in capabilities, and steel equipment rusted rapidly in the rainy climate.
In France, Lesseps kept the investment and supply of workers flowing long after it was obvious that the targets were not being met, but eventually the money ran out. The French effort went bankrupt in 1889 after reportedly spending US$287,000,000; an estimated 22,000 men died from disease and accidents, and the savings of 800,000 investors were lost.
Work was suspended on May 15, and in the ensuing scandal, known as the Panama affair, some of those deemed responsible were prosecuted, including Gustave Eiffel.
Lesseps and his son Charles were found guilty of misappropriation of funds and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment. This sentence was later overturned, and the father, at age 88, was never imprisoned.
In 1894, a second French company, the Compagnie Nouvelle du Canal de Panama, was created to take over the project. A minimal workforce of a few thousand people was employed primarily to comply with the terms of the Colombian Panama Canal concession, to run the Panama Railroad, and to maintain the existing excavation and equipment in salable condition.
The company sought a buyer for these assets, with an asking price of US$109,000,000. In the meantime, they continued with enough activity to maintain their franchise.
Phillipe Bunau-Varilla, the French manager of the New Panama Canal Company, eventually managed to persuade Lesseps that a lock-and-lake canal was more realistic than a sea-level canal.
The Comité Technique, a high level technical committee, was formed by the Compagnie Nouvelle to review the studies and work—that already finished and that still ongoing—and come up with the best plan for completing the canal. The committee arrived on the Isthmus in February 1896 and went immediately, quietly and efficiently about their work of devising the best possible canal plan, which they presented on 16 November 1898.
Many aspects of the plan were similar in principle to the canal that was finally built by the Americans in 1914.
It was a lock canal with two high level lakes to lift ships up and over the Continental Divide. Double locks would be 738 feet long and about 30 feet deep (225 m × 9 m); one chamber of each pair would be 82 feet (25 m) wide, the other 59 ft (18 m).
There would be eight sets of locks, two at Bohio Soldado and two at Obispo on the Atlantic side; one at Paraiso, two at Pedro Miguel, and one at Miraflores on the Pacific. Artificial lakes would be formed by damming the Chagres River at Bohio and Alhajuela, providing both flood control and electric power.
United States acquisition
The US’s intentions to influence the area (especially the Panama Canal construction and control) led to the separation of Panama from Colombia in 1903 The Culebra Cut in 1896 The Culebra Cut in 1902
At this time, US President Theodore Roosevelt and the United States Senate were interested in establishing a canal across the isthmus, with some favoring a canal across Nicaragua and others advocating the purchase of the French interests in Panama.
Bunau-Varilla, who was seeking American involvement, asked for $100 million, but accepted $40 million in the face of the Nicaraguan option.
In June 1902, the US Senate voted in favor of the Spooner Act, to pursue the Panamanian option, provided the necessary rights could be obtained.
On 22 January 1903, the Hay–Herrán Treaty was signed by United States Secretary of State John M. Hay and Colombian Chargé Tomás Herrán.
For $10 million and an annual payment, it would have granted the United States a renewable lease in perpetuity from Colombia on the land proposed for the canal.
The treaty was ratified by the US Senate on 14 March 1903, but the Senate of Colombia unanimously rejected the treaty since it had become significantly unpopular in Bogotá due to concerns over insufficient compensation, threat to sovereignty, and perpetuity.
Roosevelt changed tactics, based in part on the Mallarino–Bidlack Treaty of 1846, and actively supported the separation of Panama from Colombia.
Shortly after recognizing Panama, he signed a treaty with the new Panamanian government under terms similar to the Hay–Herrán Treaty.
On 2 November 1903, US warships blocked sea lanes against possible Colombian troop movements en route to put down the Panama rebellion. Panama declared independence on 3 November 1903.
The United States quickly recognized the new nation.
This happened so quickly that by the time the Colombian government in Bogotá launched a response to the Panamanian uprising US troops had already entered the rebelling province.
The Colombian troops dispatched to Panama were hastily assembled conscripts with little training. While these conscripts may have been able to defeat the Panamanian rebels, they would not have been able to defeat the US army troops that were supporting the Panamanian rebels.
The reason an army of conscripts was sent was that it was the best response the Colombians could muster, as Colombia still was recovering from a civil war between Liberals and Conservatives from October 1899, to November 1902, known as the “Thousand Days War”.
The US was fully aware of these conditions and even incorporated them into the planning of the Panama intervention as the US acted as an arbitrator between the two sides. The peace treaty that ended the “Thousand Days War” was signed on the USS Wisconsin on 21 November 1902.
While in port, the US also brought engineering teams to Panama with the peace delegation to begin planning the canal’s construction before the US had even gained the rights to build the canal.
All these factors would result in the Colombians being unable to put down the Panamanian rebellion and expel the United States troops occupying what today is the independent nation of Panama.
On 6 November 1903, Philippe Bunau-Varilla, as Panama’s ambassador to the United States, signed the Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty, granting rights to the United States to build and indefinitely administer the Panama Canal Zone and its defenses.
This is sometimes misinterpreted as the “99-year lease” because of misleading wording included in article 22 of the agreement.
Almost immediately, the treaty was condemned by many Panamanians as an infringement on their country’s new national sovereignty.
This would later become a contentious diplomatic issue among Colombia, Panama, and the United States.
President Roosevelt famously stated, “I took the Isthmus, started the canal and then left Congress not to debate the canal, but to debate me.” Several parties in the United States called this an act of war on Colombia: The New York Times described the support given by the United States to Bunau-Varilla as an “act of sordid conquest”.
The New York Evening Post called it a “vulgar and mercenary venture”.
The US maneuvers are often cited as the classic example of US gunboat diplomacy in Latin America, and the best illustration of what Roosevelt meant by the old African adage, “Speak softly and carry a big stick [and] you will go far.” After the revolution in 1903, the Republic of Panama became a US protectorate until 1939.
In 1904, the United States purchased the French equipment and excavations, including the Panama Railroad, for US$40 million, of which $30 million related to excavations completed, primarily in the Culebra Cut, valued at about $1.00 per cubic yard.
The United States also paid the new country of Panama $10 million and a $250,000 payment each following year.
In 1921, Colombia and the United States entered into the Thomson–Urrutia Treaty, in which the United States agreed to pay Colombia $25 million: $5 million upon ratification, and four $5 million annual payments, and grant Colombia special privileges in the Canal Zone. In return, Colombia recognized Panama as an independent nation.
United States construction of the Panama canal, 1904–1914
The US formally took control of the canal property on 4 May 1904, inheriting from the French a depleted workforce and a vast jumble of buildings, infrastructure, and equipment, much of it in poor condition. A US government commission, the Isthmian Canal Commission (ICC), was established to oversee construction; it was given control of the Panama Canal Zone, over which the United States exercised sovereignty.
The commission reported directly to Secretary of War William Howard Taft and was directed to avoid the inefficiency and corruption that had plagued the French 15 years earlier.
On 6 May 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed John Findley Wallace, formerly chief engineer and finally general manager of the Illinois Central Railroad, as chief engineer of the Panama Canal Project. Overwhelmed by the disease-plagued country and forced to use often dilapidated French infrastructure and equipment, as well as being frustrated by the overly bureaucratic ICC, Wallace resigned abruptly in June 1905.
The ICC brought on a new chairman, Theodore P. Shonts, and a new chief engineer was appointed, John Frank Stevens, a self-educated engineer who had built the Great Northern Railroad.
Stevens was not a member of the ICC; he increasingly viewed its bureaucracy as a serious hindrance, bypassing the commission and sending requests and demands directly to the Roosevelt administration in Washington, DC.
One of Stevens’ first achievements in Panama was in building and rebuilding the housing, cafeterias, hotels, water systems, repair shops, warehouses, and other infrastructure needed by the thousands of incoming workers. Stevens began the recruitment effort to entice thousands of workers from the United States and other areas to come to the Canal Zone to work. Workers from the Caribbean—called “Afro-Panamanians”—came in large numbers and many settled permanently.
Stevens tried to provide accommodation in which the workers could work and live in reasonable safety and comfort.
He also re-established and enlarged the railway, which was to prove crucial in transporting millions of tons of soil from the cut through the mountains to the dam across the Chagres River.
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