“We built it. We paid for it. It’s ours” were words declared by Ronald Reagan in 1977, not long after leaving the California governor’s office, and that’s the position President Donald J. Trump has recently taken, by and large if not precisely; but Reagan was reluctant to put any real action behind those words after becoming president, whereas Trump has shown he has the determination of will and the spine to do whatever is necessary to protect and defend U.S. interests in the Panama Canal Zone, putting Panamanian President Mulino on notice to this fact.

This is a righteous and sound move in response to a growing Communist Chinese influence in a country that has largely been receptive to socialism since its emergence on the international scene as a nation, and it puts new teeth in the Monroe Doctrine and exerting U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere to block and expel foreign nations that are hostile to the U.S. from the region.

The Panama Canal is once again in the public eye with recent trip our Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, made to Panama, and regardless of what the Founders admonished against “foreign entanglements” the Panama Canal Zone is a unique animal that is defined elsewhere outside the paradigm of their contentions, for numerous reasons that can, have and will result in detrimental effects upon all America, if not carefully and properly addressed.

What we have witnessed in recent weeks from Trump and his people is not new. Many other past presidents had their own concerns over bad actors from abroad using the Canal as a means to damage the U.S. economy. FDR set plans in place to defend it against any possible German sabotage during WWII and subsequent administrations had their won concerns when the U.S. was in the thick of the Cold War and the Soviet Union was sending out communist agents into all Latin America, much as they did with Cuba.

President Mulino placed the blame for his country’s cozy arrangement with China on the U.S. and past administrations for leaving a void to be filled as it relates to the needs of Panama, once again revealing the tendency of so many foreign nations to be less concerned with defending their freedom or the freedom of the region than they are with bleeding America’s treasury dry.

But after getting the beejeezus scared out of him by President Trump’s remarks, Mulino has seen the error of his country’s ways and now suggests that a new era is opening up between Panama and America, full of new opportunity.

Trump has correctly asserted that China currently exerts an undue influence over the Canal, although many so-called “experts” denounce the assertion and claim that C.K. Hutchinson, the Hong Kong based company operating the Canal, is a neutral party. Trump’s critics deceptively hide the fact that Li Ka-Shing, a 91 year-old Chinese billionaire, and his family members hold the lion’s share of Hutchinson’s shares and they all have extremely close ties to the Chinese Communist Party.

Panama owes its very existence as a nation today to America and President Teddy Roosevelt who sent U.S. Marines to prevent Colombia from halting the Panamanian revolution in 1903, however, this in no way gives the U.S. any real say in Panama’s internal affairs as an independent and sovereign nation, when it comes to dealing with China and signing on to the Silk Road Initiative. The U.S. can make any new alliance with an adversary come at a cost if it becomes apparent it will have a detrimental effect on our own vital interests, and specifically, in regard to the Panama Canal, the United States does have the absolute right to retake the Canal at any time its neutrality is threatened or becomes nonexistent, under the 1977 U.S.-Panama Treaty [Torrijos-Carter Treaties], as is the current situation.

It’s also worth noting at this juncture that China broke ground and started constructing a massive super-highway in Panama’s Darien Gap last March. This project was undertaken as part of the Belt and Road Initiative, known as the Silk Road, which Panama joined in 2018, as it also surprised the U.S. by withdrawing support for Taiwan’s national sovereignty and joining the Chinese Communist narrative that contends Taiwan is a part of China, despite a historical record which proves this is false.

Under Article IX Section 8 of the Panama Canal Treaty of 1977, it states:

“The Republic of Panama shall not issue, adopt or enforce any law, decree, regulation, or international agreement or take any other action which purports to regulate or would otherwise interfere with the exercise on the part of the United States of America of any right granted under this Treaty or related agreements.”

China’s President Xi and the Chinese Communist Party can and often does exert a heavy influence over any Chinese owned company, including any company originating in Hong Kong, which exemplifies the fact that with the acquisition of the Panamanian ports of Cristobal and Balboa in 1997 by C.K. Hutchinson was a de facto acquisition for the Chinese Communist Party. And with Panama’s renewal of its deal with Hutchinson in 2021, the de facto Chinese control over this most vital conduit for the world’s maritime traffic was preserved, as China expanded operations and built many new branches of its companies in the immediate area of the Panama Canal to threaten it in a way we have not witnessed since the U.S. relinquished control to Panama forty-six years ago.

One must take note that under Article VIII of the 1977 treaty, Annex A clearly states:

“‘Canal’ includes the existing Panama Canal, the entrance thereto and the territorial seas of the Republic of Panama adjacent thereto, as defined on the map annexed hereto (Annex B), and any other interoceanic waterway in which the United States of America is a participant or in which the United States of America has participated in connection with the construction or financing, that may be operated wholly or partially within the territory of the Republic of Panama, the entrances thereto and the territorial seas adjacent thereto.”

In this sense, Panama absolutely has violated the 1977 treaty, and many Republican senators said as much, just a few days ago during a hearing before the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, chaired by Senator Ted Cruz who also holds this view.

On January 28th 2025, Senator Ted Cruz stated:

“China controls facilities on both ends of the canal that gives them observation, that gives them the ability to shut down transit, and right now, China is building a bridge across the canal. That bridge, it’s taking over ten years to build that bridge. That bridge gives them the ability to shut down the canal at any moment. Pursuant to the terms of the treaty, Panama was not entitled to hand over control of the canal to China.”

This alone, in and of itself, is a grave existential threat to all America.

On December 21st 2024, President Trump wrote on Truth Social:

“The Panama Canal is considered a VITAL National Asset for the United States, due to its critical role to America’s Economy and National Security. A secure Panama Canal is crucial for U.S. Commerce, and rapid deployment of the Navy, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and drastically cuts shipping times to U.S. ports.”

Just last month in a news conference at Mar-a-Lago, President Trump declared:

“We gave the Panama Canal to Panama. We didn’t give it to China. They’ve abused that gift.” – words he repeated from the White House shortly after noon on February 3rd 2025.

The United States largely ceded the Panama Canal to the Panamanians at the urging of the communists and globalists within the U.S. government, a position advocated by Henry Kissinger when he was Secretary of State under President Ford. Kissinger and others of his ilk professed that this would build good will and improve the U.S. image in Latin America. Even though Jimmy Carter would go on to later campaign on his position that the U.S. would not relinquish “practical control of the Panama Canal Zone any time in the foreseeable future”, he soon changed his mind at the intense urging of Cyrus Vance who became his Secretary of State after he won the presidency in 1976.

In a 1977 debate on the merits of ceding the Panama Canal Zone to Panama, between William F. Buckley, a leading conservative, and former Governor of California Ronald Reagan, who would later win the presidency, Reagan quipped:

“I don’t believe that in Latin America we would do anything to strengthen our position by, again, yielding to the unpleasantries in this treaty. I think, if anything, we would become the laughingstock by surrendering to unreasonable demands, and by doing so, I think we cloak weakness in the suite of virtue. This has to be treated in the whole area of the international situation. The Panama Canal is just one facet of our foreign policy, and with this treaty, what we do we do to ourselves in the eyes of the world, and to our allies? Will they … see that as the magnanimous gesture of a great and powerful nation? I don’t think so, not in the view of an administration that is hinting that we’re going to throw aside an ally named Taiwan. I think that the world would see it as, once again, Uncle Sam putting his tail between his legs and creeping away rather than face trouble.”

Finally, on February 2nd 2025, during a meeting in Panama City, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio put Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino on notice at the behest of President Trump. that the U.S. know he is violating the 1977 Panama Canal Treaty and the status quo will no longer be acceptable. And President Mulino, the first conservative Panamanian president elected in decades, did agree to audit C.K. Hutchinson’s activities and look into the fees being charged, since Trump has asserted the fees are extremely higher for U.S. freighter and Naval ships, and to his credit, Mulino also pledged to remove Panama from the Silk Road Initiative, by refusing to renew the agreement when it expires in 2026.

After the Sunday meeting, President Mulino told reporters he didn’t feel threatened, and he didn’t believe there was any risk that Trump was going to intervene militarily. He also iterated that the Canal is in fact operated by Panama and will continue to be operated by Panama, despite the abundance of evidence that proves contrary to his assertion. But it was a position taken in a moment of bravado and much like a little boy whistling through the graveyard, since the bulk of his response reveals he took President Trump’s concerns very seriously.

It would seem that Trump has Panama’s full attention, and finally America has a president that accepts nothing less than full respect for America and the letter of the agreements it makes with the nations of the world. Under Trump, the United States and this America we love so well is removing Her tail from between Her legs, walking upright tall and proud and showing Her fangs again, and the President is rightfully exerting America’s interests first over those of foreign nations, no matter how foreign leaders and America’s communist mainstream media feels about it.

I can almost hear the groans and the gnashing of teeth from the Marxist-Maoist anti-Americans and their screams of “U.S. imperialism” and “the U.S. empire expansion”. No huge fan of the expansion of our U.S. empire which has shown a massive inclination to suppressing freedom and liberties, for now it’s our reality, and given what we face elsewhere in the world, I tend to hold the position that it’s better to live under a U.S. empire that is still fairly benevolent for the most part, than to live under the known tyranny of an ever more advancing Chinese empire currently ascending worldwide.

Although I will and often have stood up against anything I believed to be a government overreach and/or a violation of our rights in the past, in this instance, I believe President Trump is one-hundred percent on the right side of the issue. Much like Stephen Decatur, taking liberties with his words here, I take the position of “My country right or wrong; may She always be right but even when wrong, my country“.

America cannot and must not allow China to become an overwhelming presence in Central and South America in order to increase its aggressions against the U.S. as an adversarial nation and an enemy in our own backyard.

February 6, 2025

~ The Author ~
Justin O. Smith has lived in Tennessee off and on most of his adult life, and graduated from Middle Tennessee State University in 1980, with a B.S. and a double major in International Relations and Cultural Geography – minors in Military Science and English, for what its worth. His real education started from that point on. Smith is a frequent contributor to the family of Kettle Moraine Publications.