Trump could upend Carter’s legacy by retaking the Panama Canal

By Mayank Chhaya-
It is ironic that in the midst of the state funeral for former President Jimmy Carter this week, the Panama Canal, control over which was transferred to Panama by him in 1978, has been made into a hugely contentious global issue by the incoming President Donald J Trump.
In refusing to rule out using military force to reclaim the strategically and economically crucial Canal for America, Trump has threatened to upend Carter’s legacy.
Known as the Torrijos-Carter Treaties, which were ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1978, the former president finalized them with the then president of Panama, Omar Torrijos. They are regarded as one of Carter’s greatest accomplishments but Trump has been characteristically dismissive about them.
According to the U.S. Office of the Historian, the U.S. acquired the rights to build and operate the Panama Canal during the first years of the 20th century. “The Hay-Herrán Treaty, negotiated with the nation of Colombia in 1903, allowed the United States rights to the land surrounding the planned canal. The Colombian Senate refused to ratify the treaty, but Panama was in the process of seceding from Colombia. President Theodore Roosevelt therefore supported the cause of Panamanian independence with the Canal in mind. His support paid off, and on November 18, 1903, the United States signed the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty, establishing permanent U.S. rights to a Panama Canal Zone that stretched across the isthmus,” a backgrounder explains.
However, tensions between the U.S. and Panama grew as the 20th century progressed, so much so that in 1964, “a riot between U.S. residents and Panamanians, sparked over the right to fly the Panamanian flag in the Canal Zone, led to a brief interruption of diplomatic relations between the two countries.”
Bilateral relations were soon re-established with the two reaching an agreement on three treaties in 1967 but the canal yet again came under strain after the defeat of Panamanian president Marco Robles by Arnulfo Arias Madrid in the 1968 elections. Things took a dramatic turn barely eleven days into Arias’s term when Colonel Torrijos deposed Arias in a coup.
Torrijos was keen to have an agreement with the U.S. over the canal. According to the backgrounder, “Secretary of State Henry Kissinger set forth his reasoning in a meeting with President Ford in 1975: “If these [Canal] negotiations fail, we will be beaten to death in every international forum and there will be riots all over Latin America.”
“In 1973, the Nixon administration appointed Ellsworth Bunker, a seasoned U.S. diplomat, to lead the U.S. delegation. Bunker focused on ensuring perpetual U.S. use of the Panama Canal, rather than perpetual U.S. control of the Panama Canal Zone. Between the years of 1973 and 1976, Bunker and his team were able to conclude a series of draft agreements with the government of Panama that formed the foundation of the eventual Torrijos-Carter Treaties,” the backgrounder says.
“The 1976 presidential elections proved to be a perilous time for the negotiations. While President Ford supported a Canal treaty, his primary opponent, Ronald Reagan, did not. The Democratic nominee for president, Jimmy Carter, also seemed to oppose a treaty. In an October debate with Ford, Carter vowed that he would not surrender “practical control of the Panama Canal Zone any time in the foreseeable future.”
Notwithstanding his initial opposition to ceding control of the Canal to Panama, Carter eventually relented.
“The Carter administration formulated a strategy to conclude debate over the Canal and to gain Senate ratification. Carter officials worked on selling the treaty to the public, holding hundreds of forums where policymakers explained the administration’s rationale for completing a treaty. Torrijos hosted U.S. Senators in Panama, where he stressed that he was neither an enemy of the United States nor a communist,” the backgrounder says.
Interestingly the actor John Wayne, who was a conservative and a friend of Torrijos, also endorsed the negotiations. “The negotiators decided that their best chance for ratification was to submit two treaties to the U.S. Senate. The first, called The Treaty Concerning the Permanent Neutrality and Operation of the Panama Canal, or the Neutrality Treaty, stated that the United States could use its military to defend the Panama Canal against any threat to its neutrality, thus allowing perpetual U.S. usage of the Canal. The second, called The Panama Canal Treaty, stated that the Panama Canal Zone would cease to exist on October 1, 1979, and the Canal itself would be turned over to the Panamanians on December 31, 1999. These two treaties were signed on September 7, 1977,” the backgrounder says.
It took more than six months before the Senate voted. Many Senators who opposed the treaties tried to add amendments that would make it harder for other Senators to vote in favor of them. In the end, the Carter administration succeeded—but just barely.
The Senate ratified the Neutrality Treaty on March 16, 1978 by a vote of 68 to 32. On April 18, they ratified The Panama Canal Treaty by an identical margin. “The Carter administration revisited many of these issues with Congress when it negotiated the implementation legislation for the Torrijos-Carter Treaties. Carter signed the implementation legislation into law on September 27, 1979,” according to the backgrounder.
One of the consequences of the treaties was that they illustrated to the states aligned with the erstwhile Soviet Union that the U.S. did not have imperial ambitions.
“While the treaties represented a great moment of cooperation between the United States and Panama, relations between the two countries grew contentious after the death of Torrijos in 1981. In December of 1989, President George H.W. Bush ordered an invasion of Panama to remove Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega from power. By 1999, however, relations had grown more peaceful and the Canal was turned over to the Panamanians who have administered it ever since,” the backgrounder says.
If Trump carries out his threat to employ all means to reclaim the Canal, including using military force, he would have ended over a quarter century of peaceful administration of the crucial waterway.