President-elect Donald J. Trump wants the Panama Canal back because he finds the tariffs too high, he also said the U.S.A. should control it because they built it. Donald also claims the canal to be “operated by China”. Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino responded to Trump’s claims and said there is “absolutely no Chinese interference” in the Canal. The United States controlled the Panama Canal Zone until 1977, then treaties were negotiated under Jimmy Carter’s presidency for the canal to be ceded to Panama.
“Giving the Panama Canal to Panama was a very big mistake,” said Trump. “Look, [Carter] was a good man… But that was a big mistake.”
The treaty called The Treaty Concerning the Permanent Neutrality and Operation of the Panama Canal, stated the United States could use its military to defend the Panama Canal if it is threatened militarily. Trump was asked during a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida if he would use military force to take over the Panama Canal or Greenland; he responded: “No, I can’t assure you on either of those two… But I can say this, we need them for economic security.”
A move by force would go against the international law linked to the treaty that was signed thanks to Jimmy Carter because there is no military threat.
The Panama Canal is an 82 km waterway in Panama that connects the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. It was artificially created in 1904 and the construction was completed in August 1914. It was created to reduce the time for ships to travel from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.
The Panama Canal was an old Spanish dream which dates from the Spanish conquest. During the 16th century, the Spanish built a land path that connected the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans. It was built to bring the gold from Peru to Spain. They had tried to dig a maritime canal, but it was too hard because they didn’t have the technical equipment needed.
The project resumed during the 19th century when the western United States was developing with the California Gold Rush. They wanted to build a canal because it was the quickest passage to go from California to the eastern U.S.A., otherwise, they had to pass by Cape Horn, the southernmost part of Chile.
With the collapse of the Spanish Empire in Latin America, the Americans started to be interested in building a canal. In the 1820s, the U.S. started negotiating with Gran Colombia (nowadays Panama, Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela), hoping to build the canal. Later, they succeeded in making Panama independent and started the construction of the canal in 1904.
The majority of the builders of the Panama Canal came from Barbados, a Caribbean country. Workers had horrible working conditions, about 20% of the workers died during the construction of the waterway. This therefore makes the construction of the Panama Canal one of the deadliest constructions of all time.
