Trump's imperialist dreams
All he wants for Christmas is Greenland, Canada, and the Panama Canal
For some reason the usual jokes about NORAD tracking Santa’s air flight across American skies didn’t sound cute or funny to me this year.
All Trump wants for Christmas is Greenland, Canada, and the Panama Canal. His imperialist dreams have overtaken him.
His threat to reclaim the Panama Canal last weekend had little to do with “fee increases,” as he has claimed. Rather, it was another testimony to the nature of US imperialism in an increasingly multipolar world, where the rise of China and the BRICS political/economic alliance has created a counterweight to Western influence and generated this country’s imperial reflex to crush any nation that dares compete with it.
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Karen DeYoung writes in WaPo:
President-elect Donald Trump’s threat last weekend to reclaim the Panama Canal was designed to make clear that “decades of U.S. commerce financing China’s growth and strategic footprint in the Americas is over,” according to a senior Trump appointee.
Successive administrations have allowed a “vacuum of control and influence” in the Western Hemisphere, Mauricio Claver-Carone, named by Trump as his incoming administration’s special envoy for Latin America, said Monday.
But those earlier administrations also included Trump’s first term, when his policy in the hemisphere focused primarily on migration and sanctions against Venezuela, even as Panama severed diplomatic relations with Taiwan and established ties with China in 2017. That opened the door to Chinese investments and companies that were already winning bids for major infrastructure projects elsewhere in the region.
The US-built canal was opened in 1914 and controlled by the United States until a 1977 agreement provided for its eventual handover to Panama. Both countries jointly operated the canal until the Panamanian government retained full control after 1999.
Tensions reached a peak on January 9, 1964, when anti-American riots led to several deaths in the Canal Zone and the brief severing of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
Years of negotiations for a more equitable agreement led to two treaties during the administration of President Jimmy Carter. The agreements declared the canal neutral and open to all vessels and provided for joint US-Panamanian control of the territory until the end of 1999 when Panama would be given full control. The United States invasion of Panama in December of 1989, titled “Operation Just Cause,” was anything but.
Panama has been a steady ally since the US overthrew the government of President Manuel Noriega. President Biden has emphasized the strong partnership between the United States and Panama. In a recent call with President Mulino of Panama, Biden congratulated him on his successful start in office and highlighted the shared democratic values that underpin their relationship.
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Internationally, Panama seeks close relations with the U.S. and Western investors—but also a free trade agreement with China. And just as Panama seeks broader cooperation on migration, it will have a rotational seat on the UN Security Council in 2025-26, which President José Raúl Mulino is expected to try to leverage.
Mulino, playing Trump’s Grinch, responded appropriately on Sunday.
“The Canal has no control, direct or indirect, neither from China, nor from the European Community, nor the United States or any other power,” Mulino said in his statement.
“As President, I want to express precisely that every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjacent area belong to PANAMA, and will continue to be. The sovereignty and independence of our country are not negotiable.”
