“A man, a plan, a canal — Panama,” so the famous palindrome goes.
President Donald Trump is a man with a plan for the canal, namely to force Panama to limit China’s influence on the vital 50-mile shortcut between the Atlantic and the Pacific or risk the United States taking back the canal by force if necessary.
Just a quick history review.
The U.S. took over canal construction from the French in 1904, completing it in 1914 for $375 million ($8.6 billion in today’s dollars), considered the most expensive construction project in U.S. history at the time.
In 1977, President Jimmy Carter signed two treaties: the “Panama Canal Treaty,” granting Panama eventual control of the canal, and the “Permanent Neutrality Treaty,” guaranteeing it remained open to all nations and allowing the U.S. to intervene if neutrality is violated.
Trump argues that China, which operates ports on both ends of the canal under license from Panama, effectively controls the canal, which violates the treaty and threatens U.S. national security.
“China’s running the Panama Canal. That was not given to China; that was given to Panama, foolishly. But they violated the agreement, and we’re going to take it back or something very powerful is going to happen.”
Panama is already buckling under the threat after a visit in which Secretary of State Marco Rubio informed Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino that the “status quo is unacceptable” and warned that “absent immediate changes,” the U.S. would need to “take measures necessary to protect its rights under the treaty.”
The language of the 1977 treaties is vague, specifying that the U.S. has the right and responsibility to “protect and defend” the canal and that “neutrality” means that the canal will be operated as an “international transit waterway,” which “shall remain secure and open to peaceful transit by the vessels of all nations,” in both peacetime and war.
“Determining whether a certain situation violates the treaty is a mixed question of law and fact, depending on both the meaning in the treaty and the actual situation on the ground,” Eugene Kontorovich, a professor at the Scalia School of Law School at George Mason University, told a Senate committee last month. “Under international law, each party to the treaty is entitled to determine for itself whether a violation has occurred.”
Furthermore, at the time of ratification, according to Kontorovich, “The treaty was understood as giving both sides separately the right to resort to use armed force to enforce the provisions of the treaty.”
But operating ports at entrances of the canal does not constitute operation of the canal, Louis Sola, chairman of the Federal Maritime Commission, who has transited the canal more than 100 times, testified at the same hearing.
“The Panama Canal is managed by the Panama Canal Authority, ACP, an independent agency of the Panamanian government,” which Sola called “a model of public infrastructure management.”
The reason Panama contracted with China to operate two of the four ports is that China, as part of its program to spread its influence, offered a sweetheart deal.
“The Panama Ports Company paid zero, zero for 20 years on that concession,” Sola said. “So it’s really hard to compete against zero.”
“I would point out that you don’t have to stop at either port. It’s not like these two ports control the entrance to the canal,” chimed in Daniel Maffei, a commissioner on the Maritime Commission. “That is the canal authority that does control that.”
Whether or not Trump’s charge that China is controlling the canal is an exaggeration, the concern about China’s efforts to spread its tentacles into the Western Hemisphere is real.
China’s “Belt and Road Initiative,” a program that provides generous loans to developing countries only to strangle them with debt, known as “debt trap diplomacy,” along with its “gray zone” tactics in which military facilities are disguised as commercial infrastructure, has given the U.S. ample cause for concern.
“Chinese companies are right now building a bridge across the canal at a slow pace to take nearly a decade, and Chinese companies control container ports at either end,” Senate Commerce, Science, And Transportation Committee Chairman Ted Cruz (R-TX) said as he opened the panel’s hearing. “The partially completed bridge gives China the ability to block the canal without warning, and the ports give China ready observation posts to time that action. This situation, I believe, poses acute risks to U.S. national security.”
Cruz also echoed Trump’s complaint that Panama is soaking the U.S. with exorbitant fees:
“The high fees for canal transit disproportionately affect Americans because U.S. cargo accounts for nearly three-quarters of canal transits. U.S. Navy vessels pay additional fees that apply only to warships. Canal profits regularly exceed $3 billion. This money comes from both American taxpayers and consumers in the form of higher costs for goods.”
Under pressure, Panamanian President Mulino has made some quick concessions to placate Trump and head off any thought of military intervention.
After meeting with Rubio, Mulino announced he would not renew a 2017 infrastructure funding agreement under China’s “Belt and Road” program, that he would prioritize the transit of U.S. warships through the canal, and would engage in technical talks to address concerns about China’s level of involvement in the canal.
For now, the threat of a U.S. military intervention, if it was ever anything more than a pressure tactic, has faded.
“I don’t think troops will be necessary in Panama,” Trump said, based on reports he was getting from Rubio in Panama City.
It’s a good thing for Panama, considering it abolished its military in 1994 after the U.S. “Operation Just Cause” overthrew the dictatorship of Manuel Noriega in 1989.
An invasion would have been a rout.
Trump, as he tends to do when he’s trying to drive home a point, continues to mangle history and appears impervious to corrective information.
“We lost 38,000 people” building the canal, Trump had said repeatedly. “Thirty-eight thousand died, Americans, all men just about, laborers and construction people that went to Panama. The mosquitoes got them. Between mosquitoes and snakes, we lost 38,000 people.”
In the years before the U.S. took over the project, some 20,000 people died in a failed effort, mostly succumbing to malaria, yellow fever, and other tropical diseases, but they were not Americans.
The death toll during the U.S.-led construction phase of the project was 5,600 workers, with almost all, except for a few hundred Americans, from Caribbean nations who worked under appalling conditions.
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But on the larger point, Trump is getting solid backing from Republicans on the Hill.
“America is sleepwalking into a carefully laid Chinese trap. And fortunately, people like President Trump aren’t falling for it,” said Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO). “I’m glad he’s raised this issue. This dangerous complacency must end.”