Following President Donald Trump’s repeated threats to “take back” the Panama Canal, the US Senate has launched a bipartisan investigation into whether Panama has violated agreements reached when the United States handed control of the canal to Panama. While repeating most of Trump’s false claims against Panama, Senate leaders of both parties seek to provide fraudulent justifications for a military intervention against the impoverished Central American country.
During his inaugural speech on January 20, Trump accused Panama of treating America “very badly,” breaking its promises, and violating the “spirit of our treaty” handing it control of the canal after the US spent “more money than ever spent on a project before” and lost 38,000 lives” building it.
Harping on the overarching, Hitlerian theme of his administration about avenging the alleged stabs in the back suffered by America, Trump alleged that Panama is severely overcharging US commercial and military ships. “And above all,” he stressed, “China is operating the Panama Canal. And we didn’t give it to China. We gave it to Panama, and we’re taking it back.”
On Tuesday, the US Senate Commerce, Science and Technology Committee held a hearing dedicated to investigating these claims. As Committee Chairman, Ted Cruz (Republican-Texas) began by repeating Trump’s claims and adding new ones.
He said America lost 35,000 lives and spent the equivalent of $15 billion in today’s currency constructing the canal. He added that China is building a bridge across the canal, and that Chinese-owned companies control ports at both ends. “The partially completed bridge gives China the ability to block the canal without warning, and the ports give China a ready observation post to time that action,” he said. “This situation poses acute risks for US national security.”
He added that Washington deserves special treatment since US cargo accounts for nearly three-quarters of canal transits and US Navy vessels must pay fees for warships. He argued that US consumers pay higher prices because of canal fees.
“We cannot turn a blind eye as Panama exploits an asset of vital military and commercial importance and we cannot stay idle while China is on the march in our hemisphere,” he concluded.
The hearing presented a united front between the two corporate-controlled parties in advancing this neo-colonial agenda.
Maria Cantwell, a Democratic Senator from the state of Washington, followed Cruz, using an even more bellicose tone. Directing her words to a fascist president who has already threatened to invade countries across the region, she said: “I hope we can have a more aggressive strategy in Latin America.”
Cantwell stressed the strategic importance of the canal for US trade but called for a broader focus, including on cybersecurity threats from “the presence of Huawei and Chinese companies near the Canal” as well as “a comprehensive strategy to rebuild America’s supply-chain supremacy, sealift capacity [to transport military supplies]” more globally.
Cantwell took the initiative to request a Department of Defense “classified briefing to all members of our Committee about foreign adversary threats to the Panama Canal, including these adjacent areas” and said she would visit the Panama Canal herself this spring.
“I also believe that the larger issue here, as you mentioned in your statement about Belt and Road initiatives by the Chinese and their expansion, needs to be met with an aggressive response by the United States,” she said.
If only to confirm that, under Trump, the historical, bipartisan backing for an imperialist policy toward Latin America will continue, Cantwell endorsed the bipartisan Americas Act calling for a Free Trade Agreement of the Americas similar to that between the US, Canada and Mexico, which would signify the expansion of Fortress North America to the whole of the hemisphere.
The hearing will be followed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s first international trip this weekend, which will start in Panama and continue to El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic. His spokesperson Tammy Bruce told Fox Business on Tuesday, “Part of the trip is about countering China… Not about bossing other nations around, but making it clear that a partnership with the United States is something that they can trust, something that comes with benefits just like any good relationship does.”
In the mafia-like spirit of the Trump administration, this means that Panama can enjoy the benefit of not being bombed and invaded if it gives a cheaper or free priority access to US ships, removes any companies associated with China from ports and other concessions and blocks any ships targeted by US imperialism, which could scare off clients and spell financial ruin.
The canal is the main source of the Panamanian government’s revenues (23.6 percent of the total), accounting for 7.7 percent of national income and 55,000 direct and indirect jobs.
Rubio also plans to discuss measures to halt migration across the migration bottleneck of the Darien Gap, a deadly jungle that hundreds of thousands cross each year en route from South America to the US southern border.
The US ruling elite’s narrative of unfair treatment by Panama is made out of whole cloth, starting with the fact that the death toll in the US construction of the canal has been estimated by historians to be closer to 5,000, including about 300 Americans, with the overwhelming number of fatalities suffered by West Indian laborers.
Moreover, the state-run Panama Canal Authority has financed all construction and maintenance since the 1977 Carter-Torrijos agreements handed full control of the canal to Panama on December 31, 1999. The Hong Kong-based CK Hutchinson Holdings’ control of container terminals at each end of the Canal Zone does not imply control over the canal by this company, much less the Chinese government. The contract to a Chinese consortium to build the fourth elevated bridge for vehicles across the Panama Canal, moreover, does not grant China any ability to block the waterway.
The US is effectively demanding Panama discriminate without any valid reason against China, Iran and Washington’s other geopolitical rivals, which would violate the “Treaty Concerning the Permanent Neutrality and Operation of the Panama Canal,” declaring that even in times of war “it shall remain secure and open to peaceful transit by the vessels of all nations on terms of entire equality” including “vessels of war and auxiliary vessels of all nations.” US and Panamanian military vessels are only allowed to skip to the head of the line in case of “need or emergency.”
Moreover, the American ruling class is threatening to violate several treaty clauses promising American “non-intervention” in the affairs of Panama, which were already decidedly violated during the December 1989 invasion of Panama to capture the former US ally, dictator Manuel Noriega. The one exception is a clause giving the US the right to use military force to reopen the canal or restore the operations if these are interfered with.
The canal treaty and the overall relationship between US imperialism and Panama is based on colonial oppression. Panama’s very existence as a nation state has its origins in the US backing for a faction of the local ruling elite that demanded independence from Colombia entirely as a function of US interests to build the canal. Not even two weeks after Panama declared independence on November 6, 1903, the Theodore Roosevelt administration imposed upon it the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty granting the US perpetual rights to a canal zone extending five miles to either side of the waterway.
During this period, Roosevelt advanced his “Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.” John Adams, Secretary of State under James Monroe, established this US “doctrine” in 1823 by vowing to “extend its system to any part of the hemisphere” against any intervention by European powers. It assumed a new meaning under the “Roosevelt corollary” of 1904, which included the danger of any internal political revolts, consistent with a policy to “walk softly but carry a big stick.” The US could exercise “international police power,” he declared, in case “Chronic wrongdoing...may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation.”
This policy was a major inspiration for the Nazi war of conquest. Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt claimed the Monroe Doctrine represented the first example of Großraum, or a “large space.” While Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hitler’s minister of foreign affairs, based the German invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1939 on the same precepts.
Now Trump, with the backing of the entire US ruling class, is reviving these methods of neo-colonial aggression to re-assert US hegemony over the entire Western Hemisphere in preparation for world war.