As he prepares to take over the presidency of the United States this month, Donald Trump has automatically started threatening to retake the Panama Canal, again.
In the incoming president’s latest rant on social media, Panama is “ripping off” the US with “ridiculous” fees to operate an interoceanic waterway and a major global trade route. As Trump sees it, the behavior of the Central American country is especially interesting “knowing the incredible generosity given to Panama by the US”.
Trump also falsely alleged that the Chinese military is currently operating the canal. In fact, the Panama Canal was previously used by none other than the United States, which built the canal at the beginning of the 20th century and only gave it to Panama in 1999.
As for the “extraordinary generosity” allegedly transferred to the country by a friendly local superpower, just remember the so-called “Operation Just Cause” of the American military, launched in December 1989, because of the poor area of El Chorrillo in the capital of Panama. from Panama City earned the moniker “Little Hiroshima”.
Up to several thousand people were killed in the fireworks display, a ritual for the upcoming US war in Iraq. On the other hand, Panamanian leader and former American ally Manuel Noriega surrendered to US forces on January 3, 1990, after his stay at the Vatican embassy in Panama City was interrupted by a playlist of violent music blasted from American tanks parked outside. Selected songs include Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” and Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead or Alive”.
Noriega was taken to Miami to face drug trafficking and other charges – never mind his long history in the CIA’s pay despite full US knowledge of narco activity. His removal then paved the way for greater participation in the international drug trade by the Panamanian ruling class.
Just call it “extraordinary generosity”.
As for the times of previous generosity, the US from 1903 until 1979 presided over a de facto colony called the Panama Canal Zone, which included a large part of Panama’s territory and was accompanied by a system of racial discrimination that continued even after such events. were officially completed in the US proper. The Canal Zone also hosted all kinds of US military bases and other installations such as the famous US Army School of the Americas, attended by many Latin American dictators and death squad leaders and Noriega himself.
The United States completed the construction of the Panama Canal in 1914 – a project that killed countless thousands of people and relied heavily on the labor of black people and the enslavement of criminals. An act of world domination instead of “generosity”, the construction of the canal began during the administration of US President Theodore Roosevelt, who was obsessed with the idea that the waterway “is an important – very important – path to the end of the world.” United States of America”, as historian David McCullough notes in his article The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914.
When Roosevelt assumed the presidency in 1901, Panama was still under Colombia, but negotiations between the Colombian and US governments regarding the proposed canal proved to be less than smooth. And voila: the new nation of Panama was born in 1903, birthed by Roosevelt and happy to cede part of its territory and 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 from the heart of Latin America to serve the purposes of a foreign empire”. And to this day, Panama bears the scars of filming. One prominent street in Panama City is still named after Roosevelt, although Fourth of July Avenue has been renamed Martyrs’ Avenue in honor of the victims of the flag riots of January 1964. At that time, the US military killed at least 21 people after Panamanian students tried to raise their flag near the US at Canal Zone High School.
As it turns out, Trump has his connection to Panama City in the form of a luxury waterfront hotel that was once called the Trump Ocean Club International Hotel and Tower and is still called “Trump” despite the empire’s dissolution. his surname from the symbol. In 2017, NBC reported that the Trump Organization licensed its name to a 70-story building, “full of ties to drug money and international organized crime”.
That said, it’s not like Panama is the problem that has kept Trump up at night. Instead, the sudden threats to reopen the Panama Canal are just part of the “America First” president-elect’s way of whipping his supporters into a flamboyant entitlement debate – all with the help of disparaging US “generosity.”
As if America wasn’t already “first” in wreaking havoc around the world. But, hey, when you belong to the world’s most powerful country, you get your cake and be a victim, too.
McCullough writes that, amid the failed canal negotiations in Washington in 1902, Colombian ambassador Dr. José Vicente Concha made the following comment regarding his gringo colleagues: “The desire to make themselves seen, as a Nation, that has great respect for the rights of others. it forces these gentlemen to play a bit with their meat before devouring it, though when it’s all said and done, they’ll do it one way or another.”
And while Trump cannot be abused for pretending respect, the US has certainly not lost its desire to play its prey.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.
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