Of the many sweeping changes President Trump has been focused on during his return to the White House is control over the Panama Canal.
Since winning the 2024 election, Trump has mused over retaking control of the canal and during a press conference in December when he also brought up the idea of acquiring Greenland and changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, he refused to rule out using military force to accomplish it.
He brought it up again in his inaugural speech.
“The purpose of our deal and the spirit of our treaty has been totally violated. American ships are being severely overcharged and not treated fairly in any way, shape or form, and that includes the United States Navy,” Trump said Monday in his inaugural speech after taking his oath of office. “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 day one of his second term Monday, Trump signed an executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico.
Also on Monday, Panamanian president Jose Raul Mulino said in a post to his X account that he rejected Trump’s claims in their entirety and said there is “no presence of any nation in the world that interferes with our administration.”
What is the Panama Canal?
The Panama Canal is an artificial waterway in Panama, an incredible 51-mile manmade canal connecting the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific Ocean that greatly reduces the time it takes to get from the Atlantic to the Pacific and provides a much more economical trade route.
About 5% of the world’s maritime trade passes through the canal including nearly 40% of the United States’ container ships. It is a hugely valuable U.S. trade route.
The canal uses locks at each end to lift ships up to a freshwater lake 85 feet above sea level and then lower them again at the other end.
Where is the Panama Canal?
The canal runs from Port of Colón, Cristóbal to the Port of Balboa and travels through a series of artificial lakes and channels.
Who owns the Panama Canal?
The Panamanian government controls the canal through the Panama Canal Authority, an 11-member board that oversees the waterway’s maintenance and security.
Several different countries suggested a canal across what is now Panama in the 1500-1600s. A treaty allowed U.S. passage rights and an overland trail did a lot of business during the 1848 California gold rush, followed by a highly successful railroad. A nearly 20-year attempt by the French to build a canal failed after tens of thousands died from accidents and tropical diseases.
The U.S. under President Theodore Roosevelt pursued the rights for a canal, even helping the new government of Panama to become independent from Colombia before signing a treaty that granted the U.S. the rights to build and administer the Panama Canal Zone.
Tensions between Panama and the U.S. rose after World War II, especially after the U.S. pressured France and the UK to give up on attempting to retake control of the Suez Canal from Egypt in 1956. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter signed a treaty to grant the Panamanians control of the canal as long as they guaranteed its permanent neutrality. Control of the canal was shared between the two countries until it was given to Panama, as agreed, in 1999.
Is China operating the Panama Canal?
Trump has repeatedly said that China controls the canal.
China does not control the Panama Canal itself. But before the handover, a Hong Kong shipping company, Hutchison Ports PPC, won an international bid in 1997 to allow Chinese companies to operate the container shipping ports on either end. Hutchison Ports PPC and its parent company, CK Hutchison Holdings, are not owned by the Chinese government but they are subject to China’s national security law.
U.S. and Taiwanese companies also operate ports along the canal, which is open to commerce from all countries, Canal administrator Ricaurte Vásquez told The Associated Press.
Former Senator and Trump’s topic for Secretary of State Marco Rubio said during his confirmation hearing that it was a “legitimate issue.”
Rubio stressed that current officeholders in Panama are “very friendly” to the U.S., but there was concern about the Chinese-run ports on either side when he visited the country in 2017. “And the concerns among military officials and security officials, including in Panama at that point, that they could be one day used as a choke point to impede commerce in a moment of conflict.” He also said it was possible the Chinese ports could be weaponized against the U.S. and Panama.
“President Trump is not inventing this,” he said.
Mulino has said market conditions are used to set passage rates and that China was not influencing the country.
How many Americans died building the Panama Canal?
“The United States, I mean think of this, spent more money than ever spent on a project before and lost 38,000 lives in the building of the Panama Canal,” Trump said during his speech. Not American lives, they didn’t, according to Matthew Parker, author of “Hell’s Gorge: The Battle to Build the Panama Canal.”
He said that about 25,000 people died, many from mosquito-borne viruses, in the failed French attempt to build the canal in the 1880s but “virtually none” were American. They were mostly French and Jamaican, he said.
During the U.S. period of construction from about 1904 to 1914, about 6,000 people died, Parker said in the BBC interview, “almost all of whom were from Barbados.” About 300 Americans died in this effort, he said.
These figures are largely in line with other estimates of the death toll in the efforts to build the canal, which was completed in 1914.
Can the US take back the Panama Canal?
That remains to be seen. Mulino was adamant that control would stay in Panamanian hands and so far does not seem open to compromise.
“The Canal is and will remain Panama’s and its administration will remain under Panamanian control with respect to its permanent neutrality,” said Mulino.
Trump pointedly did not rule out using military force, but other countries may object to a forcible takeover. Mulino suggested using international law to hammer out any issues.
“Dialogue is always the way to clear up the stated issues without undermining our rights, total sovereignty and property of our Canal,” he said.
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