Trump vows to ‘take back’ Panama Canal in US foreign policy vision
Share:
Desire to be ‘peacemaker’ rubs up against 47th US president’s ambitions for territorial expansion. Donald Trump offered a bombastic and contradictory vision for US foreign policy at his inauguration on Monday, declaring that he would be a “peacemaker and unifier” even as he repeated his vow to “take back” the Panama Canal.
![[Musk gives thumbs up after Trump says US will plant its flag on Mars – video]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/d2680896350956f105871288529dc9239d4c69eb/0_187_2268_1276/2268.jpg?width=465&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
In his speech, Trump said that the Panama Canal, which was built by the US in the early 1900s but ultimately given to Panama in 1977 under a treaty that guaranteed its neutrality, was a “foolish gift that should never have been made”. “We gave it to Panama and we’re taking it back,” he said.
The Panama Canal was built over a series of decades in the late 1800s and early 1900s and carried a devastating human toll due to accidents and diseases such as malaria. “The United States – I mean, think of this – spent more money than ever spent on a project before and lost 38,000 lives in the building of the Panama Canal,” Trump said at the Capitol.
A French attempt to build the canal cost the lives of at least 20,000 workers, most of them from Caribbean islands such as Antigua, Barbados and Jamaica. At least 5,600 workers died during the US era of building the canal from 1904-14, the vast majority of whom were not Americans.
A treaty signed by Jimmy Carter in 1977 transferred the canal to Panama in 1999 and allowed any nation to use the canal. The US launched a military invasion of Panama in 1989 that left as many as 1,000 people dead as the US overthrew president Manuel Noriega – a one-time US ally who was later targeted for his role as an international drug kingpin.
