The history of the Panama Canal and why Donald Trump cannot take it back on his own as he threatened

Teddy Roosevelt once declared that the Panama Canal is “one of the feats that the people of this republic will remember with the greatest pride.” More than a century later, Donald Trump threatens to reclaim the waterway for the republic itself.

The American president-elect is denouncing the tariff increases that Panama has imposed to use the route that connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. He says that if things don’t change after he takes office next month, “We will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to the United States of America, in its entirety, quickly and without questions asked.”

Trump has long threatened Washington’s allies with punitive action in hopes of winning concessions. But experts from both countries are clear: Unless he declares war on Panama, Trump cannot reassert control over a canal that the United States agreed to give up in the 1970s.

Here’s a look at how we got here:

It is an artificial waterway that uses a series of locks and reservoirs over 82 kilometers (51 miles) to cross through central Panama and connect the Atlantic and Pacific. It saves ships from having to sail more than 11,000 kilometers (about 7,000 miles) additional ones to go around Cape Horn at the southern tip of South America.

The U.S. International Trade Administration says the canal saves U.S. business interests “considerable time and fuel costs” and allows for faster delivery of goods, which is “particularly significant for time-sensitive cargo, perishable goods and industries with supply chains that require timely delivery.”

An initiative to establish a canal through Panama led by Ferdinand de Lesseps—who built the Suez Canal in Egypt—began in 1880, but made little progress for nine years before declaring bankruptcy.

Malaria, yellow fever and other tropical diseases devastated an already struggling workforce with especially dangerous terrain and harsh working conditions in the jungle, ultimately claiming more than 20,000 lives, according to some estimates.

At that time Panama was a province of Colombiawhich refused to ratify a later 1901 treaty that licensed American interests to build the canal. Roosevelt responded by sending American warships to the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of Panama. The United States also wrote in advance a Constitution that would be ready after Panamanian independence, in which American forces were granted “the right to intervene in any part of Panama, to restore public peace and constitutional order.”

In part because Colombian soldiers could not traverse hostile jungles, Panama declared its independence essentially bloodlessly in a matter of hours in November 1903. It soon signed a treaty allowing a U.S.-led team to begin construction.

Some 5,600 workers subsequently died during the Washington-led construction project, according to one study.

The waterway opened in 1914, but almost immediately some Panamanians began to question the validity of American control, leading to what in Panama It is called a “generational struggle” to recover that territory.

The United States abrogated its right to intervene in Panama in the 1930s. By the 1970s, after a drastic increase in its administrative costs, Washington spent years negotiating with Panama to cede control of the canal.

The government of US President Jimmy Carter worked with the government of Omar Torrijos. Ultimately both sides decided that their best chance for ratification was to submit two treaties to the United States Senate, the “Permanent Neutrality Treaty” and the “Panama Canal Treaty.”

The first, which continues in perpetuity, gives Washington the right to act to ensure that the canal remains open and safe. The second established that the United States would deliver the canal to Panama on December 31, 1999, and it was on that date that it was fulfilled.

Both were signed in 1977 and ratified the following year. The agreements were maintained even after 1989, when President George HW Bush invaded Panama to overthrow Panamanian President Manuel Noriega.

In the late 1970s, as handover treaties were being discussed and ratified, polls found that about half of Americans opposed the decision to cede control of the canal to Panama. However, by the time ownership actually changed in 1999, public opinion had changed: about half of Americans were in favor.

Administration of the canal has been more efficient under Panama’s government than during the U.S. era, with traffic increasing 17% between fiscal years 1999 and 2004. Panamanian voters approved a referendum in 2006 authorizing a major expansion of the canal to accommodate larger modern cargo ships. The expansion was completed in 2016 and cost more than $5.2 billion.

Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino said in a video on Sunday that “every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjacent area belongs to Panama and will continue to be so.” And he also said that “we Panamanians may think differently in many aspects, but when it comes to our canal, and our sovereignty, we are all united under a single flag: that of Panama.”

Transportation prices have risen as last year’s droughts affected the locks, forcing Panama to drastically reduce ship traffic through the canal and raise fees to use it. Although it has mostly returned to normal rain, the Panamanian government says fare increases may be necessary in the future as it makes improvements to accommodate modern transportation needs.

Mulino said the rates pTo use the channel “they are not a whim.”

Jorge Luis Quijano, who was the waterway’s administrator from 2014 to 2019, said all canal users are subject to the same fees, although they vary depending on boat size and other factors.

“I can accept that the channel’s customers can complain about any increase,” said Quijano, “but that does not give cause for them to be considering resuming the channel.”

The president-elect says the United States is being “ripped off” and “I’m not going to tolerate it.”

“It was delivered to Panama and the people of Panama, but it has clauses: you have to treat us fairly. And they have not treated us fairly,” Trump declared about the 1977 treaty. who he said “foolishly” handed over the channel.

The neutrality treaty does give the United States the right to act if the canal’s operation is threatened due to military conflict, but not to regain control of it.

Quijano pointed out that “there is no clause in the neutrality treaty that allows the recovery of the canal… Legally there is no formula under normal situations to recover the territory they previously used.”

Meanwhile, Trump He has not said how he might follow through on his threat.

“There is very little room for maneuver, short of a second U.S. invasion of Panama, to retake control of the Panama Canal in practical terms,” said Benjamin Gedan, director of the Latin America Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.

Gedan said Trump’s stance is especially disconcerting given that Mulino is a pro-business conservative who has “made many other proposals to show that he would prefer a special relationship with the United States.” He also noted that in recent years Panama has become closer to China, which means that Washington has strategic reasons to maintain its relationship with the Central American nation on friendly terms.

Panama is also a partner of the United States in efforts to stop illegal immigration from South America, perhaps Trump’s highest political priority.

“If you’re going to pick a fight with Panama over an issue,” Gedan said, “you couldn’t find a worse one than the canal.”