As he prepares to take back the presidency of the United States this month, Donald Trump has begun to spontaneously threatening to restore the Panama Canal, too.
According to the recently incoming president's husband tantrums on social media, Panama is “taking away” the US with “ridiculous” tariffs to use the Mediterranean waterway and the main tool for global trade. As Trump sees it, the behavior of the Central American country is particularly rude “knowing the extraordinary generosity that the US has given to Panama”.
Trump has also said without foundation that Chinese soldiers are currently operating the canal. In reality, of course, the Panama Canal was previously operated by none other than the United States, which built the canal at the beginning of the 20th century and handed over control to Panama in 1999.
As for the “extraordinary generosity” allegedly extended to the country by the friendly local power, just remember “what the US military is called”Just work the reason“, which was launched in December 1989, thanks to how the poor neighborhood of El Chorrillo in the Panamanian capital of Panama City earned the moniker”Little Hiroshima“.
Up to several thousand civilians were killed in a maniacal display of firepower, a practice run for the upcoming US war on Iraq. For his part, Panamanian leader and former US ally Manuel Noriega surrendered to US forces on January 3, 1990, after staying at the Vatican embassy in Panama City deeply disturbed by a playlist of musical torture blasts from the US tanks parked outside. Among the songs chosen were “God Bless the USA” by Lee Greenwood and “Wanted Dead or Alive” by Bon Jovi.
Noriega was transferred to Miami to face drug trafficking and other charges – not to mention his long history on the CIA payroll despite full US knowledge of narco operations. At the same time the removal was a means of much more involvement in the international drug trade by the ruling class of Panama.
Just call it “amazing generosity”.
In terms of an earlier impulse of generosity, the US from 1903 to 1979 presided over a de facto colony called the Panama Canal Zone, which included a large portion of Panamanian territory and maintained a system of racial segregation that continued even after these things. was officially abolished in the US proper. The Canal Zone also hosted all kinds of US military bases and other institutions such as the famous American Military School, attended by many Latin American dictators and death squad leaders as well as Noriega himself.
The United States completed construction of the Panama Canal in 1914—an undertaking that claimed thousands of lives and relied heavily on dark-skinned labor and chain gang servitude. An exercise in world leadership rather than “generosity”, building the canal began under US President Theodore Roosevelt, who was happy with the idea that the canal was “the way vital – essential – to the global destiny of the people. United States of America”, as historian David McCullough notes in his book The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914.
When Roosevelt took the presidency in 1901, Panama still belonged to Colombia, but the negotiations between the Colombian government and the US about the proposed canal were not so smooth. And voila: the new country of Panama was born like that in 1903, with midwives from Roosevelt and more than happy to surrender a piece of his land as well as national sovereignty to the US.
As John Weeks and Phil Gunson put it in their book Panama: Made in the USA, the country was “carved out of the heart of Latin America to serve the goals of a foreign power”. And to this day, Panama is engraved with scars. One freeway in Panama City is still named after Roosevelt, although Fourth of July Avenue was renamed Martyrs' Avenue in honor of the victims of the January 1964 flag riots. On that particular occasion, US forces killed around killed 21 people after Panamanian students tried to raise their flag next to the US at a Canal Zone high school.
As it happens, Trump has his own connection to the Panama City landscape in the form of a luxury waterfront condo formerly known as the Trump Ocean Club International Hotel and Tower and still on known locally as “.the Trump” despite removing his last name from the sign. In 2017, NBC reported that the Trump Organization had licensed its name to the 70-story building, which was “riddled with ties to drug money and international organized crime.”
That said, it's not like Panama is an issue that has ever kept Trump up at night. Instead, the sudden threats to reclaim the Panama Canal are just part of the president's “America First” approach to lulling his fan base into a delirium of entitlement. – all with the help of barriers to US “generosity”.
As if America is already “first” in terms of worldwide damage. But, hey, when you're the world's leading imperial power, you get to have your cake and be the victim too.
McCullough writes how Colombian diplomat Dr. José Vicente Concha, amid the failed canal negotiations in Washington in 1902, made the following comments to his gringo peers: “The desire to give show themselves, as a Nation, respecting the rights of others. forcing these gentlemen to eat a little with their prey before they eat it, although all is said and done, they will do so in one way or another.”
And while Trump can hardly be bothered to build respect, the United States has certainly not lost the desire to play with its prey.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.
