The line “A Man, A Plan, A Canal, Panama!” is one of the most famous palindromes ever created, and manages to combine simple wordplay with complex history. Invented in 1948 by the British palindromist Leigh Mercer, the phrase refers to the early 20th century venture by the United States to link the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans by building a canal through the Panamanian isthmus, and remarkably summarizes one of the most important events of America’s departure from isolationism.
The “man” mentioned in the palindrome is likely Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States, who supervised the herculean effort to construct the canal during its initial years. The massive infrastructure project officially established an American presence and involvement in the affairs of Panama, a precedent of intervention that would come to be repeated in Latin America for many decades. Not until 1999, almost 100 years after its construction, was the canal finally transferred to Panamanian control, resoundingly closing the lengthy disagreement over its ownership.
As of last month, however, the matter was dramatically reopened when President Trump declared his intention to seize the Panama Canal for the U.S. Frantically ranting about America being“ripped off” by “exorbitant ” commerce fees and losing economic influence over the canal to China, he floated the idea of using US military force to reclaim the canal, jolting the international community who were alarmed by this blatant display of aggression.
Panama is not the only country whose sovereignty has bizarrely been threatened by Trump. The president has also expressed interest in acquiring Greenland through military and economic coercion, and annexing Canada as the 51st addition to the United States (It may be wise, if only as the most reliable means of discouraging him from this jingoistic performance, to make Mr. Trump aware that annexing Canada would significantly harm the chances of the Republican Party to win future national elections, as this would essentially be adding a second California to the electoral mix.)
While Trump’s annexationist agenda extends beyond just Panama, his desire to acquire the Panama Canal has a special kind of significance. It reveals an underlying foreign policy attitude that the United States has taken towards Latin America for more than a century, one which treats the sovereignty of Latin American countries as a malleable force to be shaped around its own interests.
The imperialist overtones of Trump’s desires on the Panama canal trace back to the 1904 Roosevelt Corollary, which essentially stated that the United States had the authority to intervene in the internal affairs of any Latin American country it deemed acted in a delinquent manner, a conveniently open criteria which included acts that “loosened the ties of civilized society.”
The corollary served as the ideological basis for America’s continued involvement in building the Panama Canal. This involvement, as one can surely imagine, was not always pretty.
The U.S. officially gained the right to build the Panama Canal in 1903 with the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty, which, crucially, required that Panama surrender control of 5 miles of land on either side of the canal to the U.S., an area which the United States ran as a sovereign nation. Within this area, America created a highly segregated apartheid state which created entire cities and communities strictly for American workers in order to prevent contact with Panamanians.
A racial hierarchy of workers was established, constituted by “gold roll” workers, which consisted of exclusively white laborers, and “silver roll,” laborers, consisting primarily of black migrants from the West Indies. Naturally, the silver roll workers were the ones condemned to the most perilous tasks and depraved working conditions, and resulted in the vast majority of construction deaths (contrary to Trump’s crazed fabrications that 38,000 Americans died building the canal, and therefore we deserve to own it. The real number is around 300 out of 5,600, the rest were primarily black workers from the West Indies).
Furthermore, the canal zone was depopulated of Panamanians, as thousands of natives were forced from their homes. Entire villages and towns of natives were erased, evicting residents who had lived in the area for generations. It is against this history that Trump claims the United States should once again be responsible for governing the Panama Canal for its own benefit.
When it comes to relations with Latin America, the United States has historically viewed the region as its personal playground, granting itself the right to intervene economically and militarily in its own “backyard” wherever it deems appropriate. This self-bestowed prerogative which defined American foreign policy towards its Southern neighbors for most of the 20th century was invariably carried out at the expense of the sovereign rights of Latin American states, and it is this kind of profound, historically tainted arrogance that is most striking about Mr. Trump’s threats on the Panama Canal.
To forcibly acquire the Panama Canal through military aggression would mark a revival of American imperialism in Latin America, adding to an already lengthy and established record of shady, back-door political transplants. It is past time for the United States to treat Latin America with the dignity and respect it deserves, which includes upholding the region’s unimpeachable right to free sovereignty. Whether it's in our class discussions or our consumption of news media, we as Duke students should keep Panama in mind, and uphold its right to remain free.
Leo Goldberg is a Trinity first-year. His pieces typically run on alternate Mondays.
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