President-elect Donald Trump threatened on Saturday that the U.S. would reassume control of the Panama Canal if it felt that Panama wasn’t honoring the terms of a 1977 treaty regarding the waterway’s legal status.
In two lengthy Truth Social posts Saturday evening, Trump accused Panama of charging U.S. vessels exorbitant rates to pass through the critical waterway. He also claimed that the treaties enabling Panama to take control of the canal in the first place also allow for the U.S. to take it back.
“If the principles, both moral and legal, of this magnanimous gesture of giving are not followed, then we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to us, in full, and without question,” Trump wrote.
It is unclear what spurred Trump’s invective about the canal. While China has increased its presence in Latin America over the last two decades — and a Hong Kong-based company administers the two ports on each end of the canal — no Chinese commercial or government entity actually has any direct role in managing the flow of vessels through the critical waterway.
The canal is administered by an independent Panamanian government agency, the Panama Canal Authority, and China has made no public gestures towards buying the canal or increasing its footprint in the country in recent months.
Meanwhile, Panama recently elected José Raúl Mulino as president. Mulino has pledged to bring Panama closer to the United States.
The U.S. signed a treaty with the newly independent state of Panama in 1903 that allowed it to develop a long-desired canal through the isthmus which would connect the Pacific and Atlantic oceans and pay Panama from the revenues generated from the canal. In exchange, the U.S. would guarantee the neutrality of the canal and control land on both sides of the waterway by the Panamanian government. This region, known as the Panama Canal Zone, was administered by the United States and U.S. law applied to the inhabitants of the region.
But after decades of tensions around the canal, the Carter administration signed two treaties in 1977 with Panama’s military dictator, Omar Torrijos, to transition control of the vital shipping passage over to Panama. Under the terms of those treaties, Panama would gain control of the canal by 1999 and the U.S. would retain the right to defend the canal from any threat to its neutrality.
Analysts, however, do not believe that those provisions in the treaty would allow for the United States to legally retake control of the canal.
