The people of Panama have shown “that they are capable of taking back their territory and we will not give it up again,” said demonstrator Jorge Guzmán to the AFP news agency.
The USA completed the Panama Canal in 1914. In 1977, then Democratic US President Jimmy Carter and then Panamanian military leader Omar Torrijos signed an agreement to hand over the canal to Panama. In 1999, the Panamanian state took control of the waterway.
“Panama is a sovereign territory and the canal here is Panamanian,” said Saúl Méndez, head of a construction workers’ union that helped organize the protest. “Donald Trump and his imperial madness cannot claim a single inch of land in Panama.”
On Saturday, Trump criticized the “ridiculously high fees” that the Central American state is charging for passage through the connection between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Trump wrote that if Panama was unable to ensure the “safe, efficient and reliable operation” of the canal, the United States would “demand the full and unconditional return of the Panama Canal.”
Panama’s President José Raúl Mulino rejected this. Panama’s sovereignty and independence are “non-negotiable,” Mulino said, demanding “respect” for his country.
As a result of a period of drought, ship passage through the freshwater-fed canal had been restricted for months since November 2023. According to the latest information from October, the canal authority’s annual income still amounted to a record five billion US dollars (the equivalent of around 4.8 billion euros).
The Panama Canal is of central importance for world trade. It is estimated that five percent of global commercial shipping traffic passes through the waterway. The canal opens up a short route for cargo ships between the Atlantic and the Pacific, saving them the lengthy and dangerous journey around South America. The countries that use the Panama Canal most intensively are the USA, China, Japan and South Korea.
