Panama Violating Its Canal Treaty By Cozying Up To China

Above, the Panama Canal. Tripadvisor photo.

Panama president rules out talks with Trump over canal threat • Dec. 27, 2024, 1:54 AM ET (Voice of America English News)

In 1976, former Gov. Ronald Reagan made the Panama Canal a campaign issue during the year's GOP presidential primary campaign against President Gerald Ford. He charged that Ford and Sec. of State Henry Kissinger were about to turn over control of the canal to Panama. They didn't accomplish this.

Above, Nancy and Ronald Reagan at the 1976 Republican National Convention. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

However, after Jimmy Carter beat Ford in the 1976 election, he turned it over to Panama.

Recently, two friends took a two-week cruise that included sailing through the canal. They learned that cruise ships have to pay around $200,000 to cross through the canal.

Now, it seems that Panama is giving control operations to China, in violation of the Panama Canal Treaties.

From the New York Post:

“Welcome to the United States Canal!” the once and future President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social Sunday, along with a photo of an American flag proudly fluttering over a narrow body of water.

Earlier in the day, Trump had told a crowd at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest rally that he would never allow the Panama Canal, a strategic waterway built by the United States over a century ago to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, to fall into the “wrong hands.”

Trump made an economic argument along with his geopolitical one: “We’re being ripped off at the Panama Canal like we’re being ripped off everywhere else,” he told the audience as he denounced the increased fees billed to American shippers by the canal’s operators.

The waterway, originally an American possession, was given to Panama by President Jimmy Carter in two 1977 treaties that barely passed the two-thirds Senate majorities necessary for ratification.

The first treaty obliged Panama to operate the canal neutrally, with nondiscriminatory pricing, and allowed the United States to defend it from any threat that might interfere with its neutrality.

The second treaty transferred full control to Panama effective on Dec. 31, 1999, without superseding the first treaty’s broad provision allowing for US defense of this crucial military and economic asset.

Yet despite the assurances in these agreements, the sad truth is the Panama Canal is already in the “wrong hands”: China’s.

In 1996, Panama made a 25-year agreement to outsource management of the canal’s two entry ports — Cristóbal on the Atlantic side and Balboa on the Pacific — to a subsidiary of Hutchison Whampoa, a Hong Kong-based shipping firm.

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