The US has No Claim on the Panama Canal. It Belongs to Panama
My tour guide at the Panama Canal last weekend pointed to the long line of proud red, white, and blue Panamanian flags. Every light pole had one. Normally, when a U.S. Secretary of State was in Panama City on an official visit, which Marco Rubio was, the Stars and Stripes would alternate with Panama’s flag. This time, the flags were all Panama’s. It was a message, our guide said, to tell Rubio that the canal is also Panama’s.
It’s true that Americans built it. President Roosevelt — Teddy, not Franklin — had the Panama Canal built more than a century ago. President Carter agreed 48 years ago to turn it over to Panama, the Senate ratified the treaty, and President Clinton turned it over 25 years ago. The canal does belong to Panama. That is a fact, and is not arguable.
It’s not only that our government, which built it, gave it to them. In the past quarter-century, Panama has invested billions of dollars building modern locks at either end — locks that work the same way as the Ballard Locks in Seattle — so that the canal can handle bigger ships than existed when the Americans opened the canal in 1914. These new locks, paid for by Panama, are the most valuable sets of locks in the world. And three-quarters of the cargo going through the canal is either from or to the United States.
If the people of Panama thought that Trump’s threat to “take back” the canal was imminent and real, there would have been blood in the streets when I was there recently. Back in 1964, when Panamanian students rioted when American high school boys in the Canal Zone refused to fly Panama’s flag next to the Stars and Stripes, there WAS blood in the streets. U.S. troops fired on the Panamanians, and 22 of them died. The long negotiations to give the canal to Panama began because of that day. Every year, Panama venerates the rioters who died with a public holiday, January 9, called Martyr’s Day.
https://www.postalley.org/2025/03/06/the-us-has-no-claim-on-the-panama-canal-it-belongs-to-panama/
= new reply since forum marked as read
