For weeks, Donald Trump has been stating his intention to take control of the Panama Canal, a critical 51-mile long waterway that connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
At a press conference on January 7, Trump was asked by a reporter whether the US could use military force to acquire the canal. He refused to rule it out and said “we need” the canal for economic security. The president-elect’s refusal to rule out invading Panama does not bode well for his respect for national borders in general, and in Latin America in particular.
The Panama Canal has always been intimately linked to external powers. The idea of connecting the two great oceans through a man-made channel was first mooted by Spanish explorer and conquistador Vasco Núñez de Balboa in the 16th century. But it wasn’t until the 1880s when the French, following their success with the construction of the Suez Canal in Egypt, started working on the project.
