(Adnkronos) – A story made of blood, negotiations and military blitzes, which rekindles old imperial ambitions of the United States, returns to memory after the announcement of President Donald Trump who wants to bring the Panama Canal back under the control of the United States. A complex and at the same time dramatic story, the one that began with the construction of the canal, which has its roots in the late nineteenth century and which has now returned to the spotlight of the international media, reopening wounds that seemed closed.
Already in 1534 – the Wall Street Journal reconstructs in a long article – the Spanish Crown ordered the first study for the construction of a canal that would connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to facilitate the transport of gold and silver from Peru. Construction work began only in 1880 under the leadership of the famous French diplomat and entrepreneur Ferdinand de Lesseps, fresh from the triumph of Suez. But the jungle and the mountainous terrain proved insurmountable obstacles for de Lesseps, who was convicted of mismanagement and fraud. The failure of France caused the death of about 20 thousand workers, most of whom were Caribbean people killed by malaria and yellow fever.
Prelude to the construction of the canal was the independence of Panama in 1903, then a province of Colombia, to which the US gave a strong impetus. The following year, the United States took over the project, which unlike Suez posed significant technical problems. The work lasted 10 years and saw about 45 thousand people employed, over half of whom came from Caribbean islands such as Barbados and Martinique. The final bill was $ 375 million (at the time it was the most expensive American engineering project ever). The Canal opened in 1914 and more than 5,600 people died to build it, including about 350 Americans.
The United States was granted control over the Panama Canal Zone, a 10-mile-wide, 50-mile-long area that divided the Central American nation in two and which many Panamanians considered a colonial occupation. Within the area, which was run by a governor appointed by the President of the United States, numerous military facilities were built, as well as shops, golf courses, a yacht club and churches.
The riots in Panama in 1964 marked a turning point in the small state’s claims on the canal. On January 9 of that year 21 Panamanians were killed by US forces during riots sparked by a group of students who wanted to plant the Panama flag in the Canal Zone. Panamanian President Roberto Chiari briefly severed diplomatic relations with the United States. Those deaths are commemorated every year on Martyrs’ Day, a national holiday in Panama.
In the following years, the push for the independence of the canal became increasingly strong, culminating in 1977 with the signing of two treaties between the United States and Panama under the Carter presidency and to which the Republicans vehemently opposed. The first treaty established that the Canal Zone would cease to exist from October 1, 1979 and that control of the Canal would be transferred to Panama on December 31, 1999. The second treaty granted the United States the right to intervene militarily to defend the neutrality of the channel, should it be threatened.
The 1989 United States invasion of Panama, which killed more than 500 Panamanians and 23 American soldiers, dealt a severe blow to relations between the two countries. This military operation deposed dictator Manuel Noriega, accused by the United States of drug trafficking and of having annulled the presidential elections won by an opposition candidate. Noriega took refuge for 10 days at the Vatican embassy while US troops ‘bombed’ the area with loud metal music. In the end, Noriega surrendered and was tried and convicted in the US.
In 1999, the United States officially transferred control of the canal to Panama. The original 1914 canal locks, however, were now almost obsolete because they were too narrow for many US Navy ships. Panama invested more than $5 billion to build larger locks that increased revenue and the number of ship passages to 36 per day, effectively transforming this stretch of water into a vital link for global trade. Today the canal generates about $5 billion in annual revenue. The government keeps about half and the rest covers operating costs and investments.
Trump’s words in December, after his re-election, wrote a new chapter in a 150-year saga. The president claims that the canal is actually under the control of China – accusations denied by Panama – and that American ships are being overloaded with tariffs. The pro-American Panamanian president José Raúl Mulino – who is expected to visit Italy tomorrow – has firmly ruled out that Panama can ever return the canal.
John Feeley, former US ambassador to Panama, recounted that Trump’s obsession with the canal stems from his belief that the deals signed by Carter were serious mistakes, a view shared by many conservatives. In 2017, Trump got angry when Feeley told him US Navy ships were paying a toll to transit the canal. “We shouldn’t pay a penny. We built it and Carter made a bad deal,” Trump told him at the time.
According to the Panama Canal Authority, however, the US Navy has paid just $25.4 million in the past 26 years, a figure Feeley calls “budget dust,” considering the US Department of Defense’s budget is amounts to almost 900 billion dollars this year.
