President Trump surprised many, including even MAGA supporters, by calling for the return of the Panama Canal to the U.S.
It wasn't a hot issue, after all, during the election, not the way the Biden-Harris administration's open border was, and it wasn't discussed during the campaign.
But here are some recent tweets:
Merry Christmas to all, including to the wonderful soldiers of China, who are lovingly, but illegally, operating the Panama Canal (where we lost 38,000 people in its building 110 years ago), always making certain that the United States puts in Billions of Dollars in “repair”…
— Donald J. Trump Posts From His Truth Social (@TrumpDailyPosts) December 25, 2024
I am pleased to announce that Kevin Marino Cabrera will serve as the United States Ambassador to the Republic of Panama, a Country that is ripping us off on the Panama Canal, far beyond their wildest dreams.
— Donald J. Trump Posts From His Truth Social (@TrumpDailyPosts) December 25, 2024
Kevin is a fierce fighter for America First principles. As a…
Making it, yeah, a hot topic now. Trump's logic is pretty impeccable if what he is saying is true.
The canal had been in U.S. hands since its early 20th century completion and the original treaty with Panama said it was to stay in U.S. hands "forever."
An interesting backgrounder is here:
WHY ALL THE FUSS ABOUT THE PANAMA CANAL?
— Ann Vandersteel™️ (@annvandersteel) December 25, 2024
Let me introduce you to the Concini Clause - an amendment in the Panama Canal Treaty
The Concini Clause refers to a provision that was proposed by Senator Henry Bellmon during the ratification debates of the treaty in the U.S. Senate.… pic.twitter.com/DgUgZUQ29G
In 1977, Jimmy Carter, a weakling if there ever was one, caved to pressure from Panama's macho leftist strongman, Omar Torrijos, whose denizens vowed to "fill the canal with blood" if it was not handed over to them. In the U.S., the move was not politically popular, but Jimmy always did what dictators told him, and the deal went through.
The topic faded over the years, and for the most part Panama has been a friendly country to the U.S., as well as prosperous and successful, and it has run the canal well since its final handover in 1999.
Miami Herald columnist Andres Oppenheimer, an Argentinian-American who leans left, but in the main projects swamp values defending the establishment, wrote that Panama's president, José Raul Mulino, was taken aback by Trump's vows to retake the canal, which began on Dec. 21, in an interview:
Mulino told me that he was taken by surprise by Trump’s public threat, although he had heard rumors last year that the former U.S. president was concerned about China’s influence in Panama. Mulino told me there had “never, ever” been an official U.S. threat to retake the Canal since Panama began operating it in 1999.
Some establishment analysts don't take the vow to re-take the canal seriously at all:
trump probably isn’t serious about taking greenland & the panama canal
— ian bremmer (@ianbremmer) December 26, 2024
but here’s what his threats tell us about the current geopolitical climate@gzeromediapic.twitter.com/DNPfDGSWQ6
Bremmer views this as a function of Trump's purported admiration for Vladimir Putin.
But that doesn't tell us anything actually, because while Trump knows how to deal with Putin, he's not an imitator.
Bremmer dismisses it as a negotiating stance, as well as a way of getting his jollies, and perhaps hubris surrounding his great election victory of 2024.
But while I might be going out on a limb here, I think there are reasons to think Trump is serious.
I see three reasons:
Start with the strategic picture -- Trump's campaign slogan was about 'making America great again,' and much of that was spent focused on the China challenge, which Trump mentions in his tweets above. He's got China on his mind with this Panama Canal talk.
Since many people don't know history or geography, but Trump clearly does, the salient fact is that control of the canal was actually how America got great in the first place.
Geographer Robert D. Kaplan described how this came about in his excellent book, Asia's Cauldron, driving parallels between China's lunge for the South China Sea and America's control of the Caribbean, which is anchored by Panama. The Chicoms are intense students of this history and are imitating America's previous path to greatness by making the South China Sea theirs to control, same way America did with the Caribbean.
The New York Times gave Kaplan book a rave review in 2014 and quoted some arresting passages - read that second paragraph in particular:
“China’s position vis-à-vis the South China Sea,” he suggests, “is akin to America’s position vis-à-vis the Caribbean Sea in the 19th and early 20th centuries.”
The parallel Kaplan draws is straightforward and convincing. Between 1898 and 1914, the United States defeated Spain and dug the Panama Canal. This allowed Americans to link and dominate the trade of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, transforming the meaning of geography. “It was domination of the Greater Caribbean Basin,” Kaplan concludes, “that gave the United States effective control of the Western Hemisphere, which, in turn, allowed it to affect the balance of power in the Eastern Hemisphere.” In a rather similar way, he suggests, the South China Sea now links the trade of the Pacific and Indian Oceans; consequently, “were China to ever replace the U.S. Navy as the dominant power in the South China Sea — or even reach parity with it — this would open up geostrategic possibilities for China comparable to what America achieved upon its dominance of the Caribbean.” Because of this, the South China Sea is “on the way to becoming the most contested body of water in the world.”
Throughout the book, Kaplan tempers hard-nosed geopolitics with an engaging mix of history and travelogue (no reader is likely to forget his evocative comparisons of Hanoi and Saigon or his description of Borneo’s water villages) and also stresses the differences between the two cases as well as the similarities. Probably the biggest of these differences is that in the 1890s the revisionist power in the Caribbean — the United States — was militarily stronger than Spain, the status quo power, whereas in the 2010s the revisionist power in the South China Sea — China — is militarily weaker than America, the status quo power.
Now that the era of Gen. Milley is coming to its close, U.S. military superiority over China may not be the case any more, so the parallel grows more parallel (unless Trump beefs up the military, which he will probably do). It would make sense for him to dash for the canal as part of it.
The bottom line here is that America became a world power when it got control of the Panama Canal. Take away that control and America goes back to being a regional power. Put the canal back in the hands of the U.S. and it becomes a great power. This is just cold-eyed pragmatism.
Trump probably understands this and may be thinking long term about how to make America great again, how to secure its long-term future. I have mixed feelings about it, of course, given that I've spent time in Panama and I like the Panamanian government and its people, but I know this is an emotional reaction. It may well be a long-term strategic plan intended to counter the weight of China as it expands its influence in the region, too.
Trump has already given the vile Maduro dictatorship in nearby Venezuela indicators that he intends to go to "war" with them, by diplomatic means or maybe more, according to this analysis of his personnel decisions by longtime Venezuelan foreign affairs observer Pedro Burelli:
TRUMP PONE LA MIRA EN LATINOAMÉRICA: ‘GUERRA’ AVISADA PARA MADURO Y COMPAÑÍA
— Pedro Mario Burelli (@pburelli) December 23, 2024
Por Pedro Mario Burelli
Con el nombramiento de Mauricio Claver-Carone como enviado especial para Latinoamérica, el @StateDept completa un trío inusualmente enfocado en la región. Claver-Carone se une… https://t.co/oZ6UxXHMJB pic.twitter.com/4lMz3LKQKt
So if he's coming for the communists by putting ultra-knowledgable and ultra-lethal people in charge of Latin America, it would make sense that he would target Maduro's (and the Cuban oligarchy's) sugar daddies -- a key member of which is China. Taking control of the canal, based on Trump's recent tweets, is clearly about checking China and its own bid to control the Caribbean (as well as the South China Sea) at America's expense.
Here's another thing:
When America got going on constructing the Panama Canal, who was president at the time?
That's right, Teddy Roosevelt, a former president Trump has repeatedly stated he admires. That probably says something, particularly if you look at events now. It stands to reason that he knows a lot about the genius of Roosevelt as a student of history.
A third factor: Who has Trump been hanging out with, seemingly inseparably? Elon Musk springs to mind. We don't know what they talk about, but we know a lot about Elon -- which is that he thinks big, really big. He's a visionary unlike any other. Elon talks about colonizing Mars and he is so serious and so technically advanced he may well do it. Elon is a major trailblazer, an upender of the status quo. If Trump is talking to Elon, he may be talking of upending the geostrategic picture from his own end, changing how the world looks at America, raising American power and greatness. The two could even be reinforcing each other.
Which is why I think Trump's vow to take the Canal back might just be more than talk - he's bold, he loves bold ideas, and he may really find a way to do it - through negotiations or possibly something else.
In which case, his calls for the return of the canal shouldn't be dismissed as just bluster.
This could be a very fascinating four years ahead of us. Sure, analysts like Bremmer could be right. But Trump never does what people think he will do -- and he's always reaching for greatness for himself and for America.
Panama may be on his mind in more ways than one.
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