Donald Trump and the great Panama Canal tantrum

Donald Trump has univocally begun making threats to retake the Panama Canal as well as his campaign pledge to retake office this month.

Per the incoming president’s recent tantrums on social media, Panama is “ripping off” the US with “ridiculous” fees to use the interoceanic waterway and principal conduit for global commerce. Knowing the extraordinary generosity that the US has bestowed upon Panama, Trump sees the Central American nation’s behavior as particularly objectionable.

Trump has also falsely claimed that Chinese troops are currently patrolling the canal. In reality, the United States, which constructed the canal at the start of the 20th century and only relinquished control in 1999, is what the Panama Canal is known for.

Just to illustrate the “extraordinary generosity” the friendly local superpower allegedly extended to the nation by the US military’s “Operation Just Cause,” which was launched in December 1989 and contributed to the development of El Chorrillo, a poor neighborhood in Panama City, to receiving the nickname “Little Hiroshima”.

The maniacal display of firepower, which was a test case for the upcoming US invasion of Iraq, claimed the lives of up to 2,000 civilians. Manuel Noriega, a former US ally and leader of Panama, turned himself in to US forces on January 3, 1990 after a string of musical torture blares from the US tanks parked outside his residence. Selected tunes included Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” and Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead or Alive”.

Noriega was detained in Miami to face drug trafficking and other charges despite the fact that the US knew about the narcotics he was working for. His removal, in contrast, made Panama’s ruling class’s involvement in the world trade for much greater amounts of marijuana.

Just call it “extraordinary generosity”.

From 1903 until 1979, the US presided over a de facto colony known as the Panama Canal Zone, which governed a significant portion of the country’s territory and maintained racial segregation even after it was formally overthrown in the US itself. Additionally, Noriega himself attended numerous Latin American dictators and death squad leaders, as well as a number of US military installations and installations, including the notorious US Army School of the Americas.

In 1914, the United States completed construction of the Panama Canal, which involved heavily relied on chain-gang servitude and dark-skinned labor. The construction of the canal was a case study in world dominance rather than “generosity” during US President Theodore Roosevelt’s reign, who was obsessed with the idea that the waterway was “the vital – the indispensable – path to a global destiny for the United States of America,” as noted historian David McCullough in his book The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914.

Panama still belonged to Colombia when Roosevelt became president in 1901, but negotiations over the proposed canal between the US and the Colombian government failed miserably. And so, in 1903, Roosevelt’s administration gave birth to the new nation of Panama, who was more than happy to cede some of its territory and national sovereignty to the US.

In Panama: Made in the USA, John Weeks and Phil Gunson put it in their book because they wanted to help other countries achieve their goals. And to this day, Panama bears the scars of the carving. Fourth of July Avenue has been renamed Martyrs’ Avenue in honor of the victims of the January 1964 flag riots, but another well-known thoroughfare in Panama City is still named after him. At a Canal Zone high school, Panamanian students attempted to raise their flag next to the US flag, but on that particular occasion, US forces attempted to kill 21 people.

Despite the removal of his last name from the sign, Trump does have a personal connection to the Panama City landscape in the form of a waterfront luxury condo known as the Trump Ocean Club International Hotel and Tower. The 70-story building, which had “ties to international organized crime and drug money,” was given a name by NBC in 2017 after the Trump Organization obtained a name change.

Despite that, Trump has never been sleepy about Panama. Instead of being out of line with the president-elect’s “America First” strategy of riling his fan base into a delirium of pompous entitlement, all with the aid of hallucinated affronts to US “generosity,” the sudden threats to recover the Panama Canal are simply of tune with that.

As if America weren’t already “first” in terms of wreaking havoc throughout the world. But, hey, when you’re the world’s number one imperial superpower, you get to have your cake and be the victim, too.

According to McCullough, Colombian diplomat Dr. José Vicente Concha made the following observation regarding his gringo counterparts: “The desire to make themselves appear, as a Nation, most respectful of the rights of others forces these gentlemen to toy a little with their prey before devouring it, although when all is said and done, they will do so in one way or another.”

The US hasn’t lost its appetite for toying with its prey, even though Trump can’t seem to care about feigning respect.

Source: Aljazeera