The proposal by President-elect Donald J. Trump’s announcement on Tuesday that the United States might reclaim the Panama Canal – including with violence – alarmed Panamanians, who have lived with a US military presence in the canal zone and had been invaded by US military forces once before.
Few seemed to take the threats of Mr. Trump, but Panamanian Foreign Minister Javier Martinez-Acha made his country’s position clear at a press conference hours after the US president-elect mused aloud about recapturing the canal.
“The dominance of our channel is non-negotiable and is part of the history of our games and an irrevocable conquest,” said Mr. MartÃnez-Acha. “Let’s be clear: The canal belongs to Panama and will continue to do so.”
Experts said that Mr. Trump may have been the bully, perhaps with the goal of securing favorable treatment from the Panamanian government for US ships using the passage. More broadly, they said, he may be trying to send a message in an area that will be critical to his goals of controlling the flow of migrants to the U.S. border.
“If the US wanted to break international law and act like Vladimir Putin, the US could invade Panama and take back the canal,” said Benjamin Gedan. director of the Latin America Program of the Wilson Center in Washington. “No one would see this as a legitimate act and it would not only seriously damage his image, but also destabilize the channel.”
In recent weeks, as he prepares to take up his duties, Mr. Trump has repeatedly talked about not only taking over the Panama Canal, control of which the United States ceded to Panama by treaty in the late 1990s, but also about buying Greenland from Denmark (although it is not, as happens, for sale). He returned to those expansionary themes in a rambling speech Tuesday at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida estate, and this time refused to rule out the use of military force to retake the canal.
“You may have to do something,” said Mr. Trump.
The comments of Mr. Trump has not satisfied the people of Panama.
Raúl Arias de Para, an ecotourism entrepreneur and descendant of one of the country’s founding politicians, said the talk of American military force stirred memories among his compatriots of the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama. Military action then, he noted, had aiming to depose the country’s authoritarian leader, Manuel Noriega.
“It was not an invasion to colonize or take territory,” said Mr. Arias de Para. “It was tragic for those who lost loved ones, but it freed us from a terrible dictatorship.”
For the threat of Mr. Trump now to retake the channel, he said: “It’s such a remote possibility, so absurd.” The United States has the right under the treaty to defend the canal if its operations are threatened, he said, “but that is not the case now.”
Some experts said that Mr. Trump may actually be hoping to get assurances from Panamanian President Jose Raul Molino that he will work even more aggressively to stem the flow of migrants through the Darién Gap, the jungle through which hundreds of thousands of migrants have passed. they head north, fueling a wave at the US border
Mr. Mulino has already pushed hard to deter immigrants.
“There is no country in which the United States has found greater cooperation on immigration than Panama,” said Jorge Eduardo Ritter, Panama’s former secretary of state and minister of first canal affairs.
On the first day of his term, Mr. Mulino approved an agreement with the United States on containment migration through the Darién region with the help of US-sponsored flights to repatriate migrants entering Panama illegally. Since then, the number of crossings has fallen sharply, with the lowest rates seen in nearly two years.
If the government of Mr. For Trump to carry out mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, it would also require countries in Latin America and the Caribbean to agree to receive flights that would carry not only their own deported citizens, but also people from other nations, something Panama has not agreed to. do.
Experts said it was just as likely that Mr. Trump to seek a discount for U.S. ships, which make up the largest percentage of ships passing through the 40-mile passage between oceans. Fees have increased as the Panama Canal Authority grapples with the drought and the cost of building a reservoir to deal with it.
“I imagine the president-elect would settle for a US discount on the channel and declare victory,” said Mr. Gedan, from the Wilson Center.
Many experts in the area, he said, see the combative comments of Mr. Trump as “standard operating procedure for a future president who uses threats and intimidation, even with US partners and friendly countries.”
After long negotiations, the United States, then under President Jimmy Carter, agreed in the late 1970s to a plan to gradually turn the canal it had built in Panama into the country where it was located. The exchange was completed in December 1999.
Theories about why Mr. Trump appears focused on the channel swirled this week. Some have noted that ceding control of the canal to Panama has long been a sore point for Republicans.
Others said that Mr. Trump was upset that the ports at the ends of the channel are controlled by companies from Hong Kong. Panama’s president dismissed those concerns.
“There is absolutely no Chinese interference or involvement in anything to do with the Panama Canal,” said Mr. Mulino at a press conference in December.
A small country of more than four million people and without an active military, according to its Constitution, Panama would not be able to deter the US military. The protests, however, would likely be massive and could paralyze the Panama Canal, with devastating effects on global trade and particularly in the United States, experts agreed.
Panama, said Mr. Ritter, the former secretary of state, can only hope that the United States will comply with international law. “This is a case of the egg against the stone,” he said.
