Back to the Future:

Trump Revives Gunboat Diplomacy

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Mike Andrew

In a rambling inaugural address, Don- ald Trump denounced the US-Panama treaty that turned over the Panama Canal toPanamanian sovereignty.

 

“We have been treated very badly from this foolish gift that should never have been made,” Trump said. “And Panama’s promiseto us has been broken.

 

The purpose of our deal and the spirit of our treaty has been totally violated,” Trump claimed as he threatened to take backcontrol of the canal by force.

 

"The United States will once again consider itself a growing nation,” he continued, “one that increases our wealth, expands our territory, builds our cities, raises our expectations, and carries our flag into new and beautiful horizons.”

 

Earlier this month, Trump doubled down on his aggressive threats against Panama. 

 

“China is running the Panama Canal that was not given to China, that was given to Panama foolishly, but they violated theagreement, and we’re go- ing to take it back, or something very powerful is going to happen,” Trump told reporters on February2.

 

Consciously or not, Trump’s remarks hark back to the era of Teddy Roosevelt, the granddaddy of US imperialism, and foundingfather of the Panama Canal.

 

Roosevelt was a protégé of Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan, the theoretician of US naval power. Mahan envisioned a US strategicallyprotected by an enormous navy controlling the oceans that bordered it on east and west.

 

Mahan and Roosevelt noticed that US warships took too long to sail from their bases on the east coast, around the southern tipof South America, to the Philippine theater of the Spanish American War. This observation led them to take an interest in aFrench project to build a canal through Central America, linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Wouldn’t it be great, theysaid to themselves, if US warships took only half as long to sail to newly acquired US colonies in the Pacific!

 

When Roosevelt unexpectedly became President in 1901 after the assassination of William McKinley, he decided to buy out theFrench company that had been working – with very little success – on the canal. After that, the only remaining hurdle was theapproval of the local government.

 

Panama was then a province of Colombia, so the US began negotiations for rights to build a canal and install troops to occupy landon both sides of the project. Roosevelt deemed this necessary because his primary interest in the canal was military. The canal was intended to be the US Navy’s primary communications link between its Atlantic and Pacific fleets, and therefore the USmilitary had to control it.

 

Colombia, however, had other ideas. The Colombian government showed little enthusiasm for foreign troops permanentlyoccupying part of its sovereign territory. The canal negotiations stalled on this point.

 

Roosevelt was not deterred by petty problems like national sovereignty. The US made contacts with Panamanian secessionists and, with the intervention of US warships and marines, sponsored a new, independent Panama. Needless to say, the new Panamaniangovernment signed the desired treaty giving the US rights to the canal and the so-called “Canal Zone.”

 

Fast forward 75 years to 1977.Panama, now a long-established independent country, resented the contin- ued presence of UStroops bisecting its territory. At the same time, technological advances – especially the introduction of aircraft – made the canalroute far less important militarily than it had been in 1903.

 

Therefore, Jimmy Carter saw a political benefit in returning the Canal Zone to Panama, with no corresponding militarydownside. The two countries concluded a treaty to transfer the canal to Panama that took effect in 1999.

 

What does Donald Trump hope to gain by threatening to take back the canal? Maybe he just wants to look like a tough guy inhopes of pleasing his MAGA audience. Maybe he hopes to intimidate other countries into falling in line with his foreign policy.Maybe he wants to provoke a small scale war to justify suppressing domestic dissent.

 

In any case, Trump's reversion to the gunboat diplomacy of a bygone era benefits no one, certainly not the Panamanian people,and not the people of the US either.