Donald Trump, who is preparing to be elected US president this month, has begun threatening to voluntarily take back the Panama Canal as well.
Panama is “riping off” the United States with “exorbitant” fees to use the interoceanic waterway and a key corridor for global commerce, according to the president-elect’s latest tantrum on social media. In Trump’s view, the Central American country’s actions are particularly unpleasant “knowing the tremendous generosity that the United States has extended to Panama.”
Trump also baselessly claimed that the Chinese military now operates the canal. Of course, the Panama Canal was previously operated by the United States, which built the canal in the early 20th century and only handed over control to Panama in 1999.
As for the “extraordinary generosity” that a friendly regional superpower is said to have shown to the nation, recall the U.S. military’s so-called “Operation Just Cause,” launched in December 1989. Panama City has earned the nickname ‘Little Hiroshima.’
Up to thousands of civilians have been killed in the frenzied display of firepower, a rehearsal for America’s upcoming war in Iraq. Panamanian leader and former American friend Manuel Noriega surrendered to American forces on January 3, 1990. While staying at the Vatican Embassy in Panama City, he was significantly disturbed by a playlist of musical torture music blasting from an American tank parked outside. Selected songs include Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” and Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead or Alive.”
Noriega was transported to Miami to face drug trafficking and other charges. Never mind his long history on the CIA payroll, despite America’s full knowledge of his drug activities. Meanwhile, his removal opened the way for Panama’s ruling class to become much more involved in the international drug trade.
Just call it “extraordinary generosity.”
Speaking of former generosity, from 1903 to 1979, the United States ruled a de facto colony called the Panama Canal Zone, which encompassed much of Panama’s territory and maintained a system of racial discrimination that persisted long after that happened. Yes. It has been officially abolished in the United States. The canal zone also played host to all sorts of U.S. military bases and other facilities, such as the infamous U.S. Military Academy, 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. The project claimed countless thousands of lives and depended heavily on black labor and slave groups. As an exercise in world dominance rather than “generosity,” construction of the canal began during the reign of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. Historian David McCullough noted it in his book The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914.
When Roosevelt assumed the presidency in 1901, Panama was still part of Colombia, but negotiations between the Colombian government and the United States over the proposed canal proved less than smooth. And voila: In 1903, a new nation called Panama was born, became Roosevelt’s midwife, and was more than happy to cede much of its territory and national sovereignty to the United States.
As John Weeks and Phil Gunson put it in their book Panama: Made in the USA, Panama was “a country carved out of the heart of Latin America to serve the purposes of foreign powers.” And to this day, Panama bears the scars of the pieces. One of Panama City’s famous thoroughfares is still named after Roosevelt, with Fourth of July Avenue renamed Martyrs’ Avenue in honor of the victims of the January 1964 flag riots. It is done. In that particular case, U.S. troops killed about 21 Panamanian students as they attempted to raise their flag next to the U.S. military flag at a Canal Zone high school.
Coincidentally, Trump has his own connection to the Panama City landscape in the form of an oceanfront luxury condo formerly branded the Trump Ocean Club International Hotel and Tower, which despite its removal remains local. Still called “Trump.” His last name on the sign. In 2017, NBC reported that the Trump Organization licensed the name to a 70-story building “with links to drug money and international organized crime.”
In other words, Panama is not the issue that keeps Trump up at night. Rather, the sudden threat to restore the Panama Canal is simply consistent with the president-elect’s “America First” approach, whipping his fan base into a delirium of arrogant entitlement with the help of hallucinatory insults to American “generosity.”
As if America wasn’t already ‘first’ in terms of wreaking havoc around the world. But when you’re the world’s greatest imperial superpower, you can have your cake and be a victim too.
McCullough wrote how Colombian diplomat Dr. José Vicente Concha observed the following about his foreign counterparts during the failed canal negotiations in Washington in 1902: These gentlemen force their prey to play around a bit before they devour it, but they will do it one way or another in the end.”
And while Trump can hardly be bothered to pretend to be respectful, America has certainly not lost its desire to play with its prey.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.
