The treaties at issue (I believe; could be others)

Carters idiotic treaty giving them the canal:
https://pancanal.com/en/torrijos-carter-treaty/

Permanent neutrality:
https://pancanal.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/neutrality-treaty.pdf

Article IV appears to be the only thing giving USA any real right of action and that's to maintain neutrality. Including apparently letting any countries vessels do war pass through (III.e). May be tough to enforce neutrality to get special treatment for America.

Carter was dumb.
Panama literally exists as a country (use to be part of Colombia prior to canal) because of us and they are not appreciative at all
How we have treated/worked with/responded to China over the past decades is insane
China has way too big a foothold in our own backyard
China has essentially said they are an enemy of the US and should be treated as such.

LOYAL AG said:

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nortex97 said:

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Jimmy Carter's two most enormous, glaring 'mistakes' in office (aka acts of absolute treason/idiocy) were giving away the Panama Canal and putting the mullah's in charge of Iran (make no mistake, this would not have happened without his approval). I will not mourn when that hateful old bigot finally passes.

Back to the canal itself, the Panamanians have done a terrible job maintaining it I have read, which is part of the reason for all the delays. Mexico is closing in on its 'inter-oceanic corridor' which is a rail line intended to handle millions of containers a year. Hopefully that works/competes well.

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It seems nearly impossible for the cost of transportation to be competitive. Containers loaded on massive ships over water is far cheaper than containers on rail cars and that doesn't count the fact that this Mexican system will require a ship on one side to offload said containers then for another ship to load them on the other side. The brilliance of the Panama Canal from an economic perspective is its ability to utilize the cheapest form of transport we have.

We need to negotiate with Panama to resume control of the canal then repair it. Everything else is a bandaid.

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how feasible is building an alternate route through a neighboring country?

It's not.

A Nicaraguan route has been discussed over the years.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/new-canal-through-central-america-could-have-devastating-consequences-180953394/

The Chinese were most recently working on it but gave up this year (from DDG assist):

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Attempts to build a canal in Nicaragua to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans date back to the colonial era, with various proposals made over the years. The most recent project, led by a Chinese company, was canceled in May 2024 after little progress was made and significant environmental concerns were raised.

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And a canal in Nicaragua would be at least 3x as long as I don't think the world has the stomach for what it would take to do it. Climate Nazis would sabotage it left and right, and it would be so insanely expensive that I just can't see any way it would be tenable.

No Spin Ag said:

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PA24 said:

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No Spin Ag said:

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PA24 said:

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We need to leave Europe to its on devices and put100% of our attention into the western hemisphere.

I have been screaming these for years and one reason I support DJT.

Great big ocean between western hemisphere and the rest of the world. Great wealth and Natural resources and much work to do here.

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Would you be including Israel, like Europe, as part of that which isn't part of the a western hemisphere?

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Israel is protected by Jehovah as it is written, a covenant between the Jews and God.

Europe and Asia can work it out amongst themselves.

A unified Western Hemisphere would be a force no one would mess with.

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I'm not seeing, or understanding, really, the answer to my question. Sorry.

Are you good with us doing to Israel the same as what was suggested about Europe?

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No financial aid to anyone outside the western hemisphere.

Trade with anyone that benefits our needs.

No Spin Ag said:

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LOYAL AG said:

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The Kraken said:

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A treaty that was ratified by the Senate over 45 years ago and final execution was performed 25 years ago? Just how, exactly, does Trump think we "take it back"?Why is this even coming out of his mouth? Why now?

Maybe Russia should demand Alaska back due to it being a "bad deal".

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Probably because the canal is a strategically important asset and between China's influence and its lack of maintenance its future availability is in doubt. Nothing lasts forever, only until someone is willing to upset the status quo and it appears Trump is at least willing to consider doing so.

Russia can demand Alaska back if they'd like. They won't get anywhere with that demand but nothing is stopping them from doing it. On the other hand I'm guessing if he's able to make the case that the strategic value of the canal is significant enough for us to act that we will eventually regain control.

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Good points, but how does a president take something back that no longer is theirs to take back?

It sounds like a great idea, but this isn't something he can just "So much winning" sign an EO and get it.

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That's a great question I'm not sure I can answer. What I will say is we know that for Trump everything is a negotiation. I'm certain we have something the Panamanians want, we just have to figure out what it is. It might just be cash, what are we willing to pay annually to resume control over the canal? It might be favorable treatment regarding defense or southern hemisphere industrial investments. Who knows?

At this point he is throwing it out there to see how they respond and we'll go from there. It was a galactically stupid decision to turn it over to them and if he can undo that decision that's a good outcome. The details are above my pay grade.

We blithely spend money in Ukraine and pay the Taliban.

Getting the Panama Canal back under our control and out of Chinas is objectively more strategic to us than most foreign aid currently given away.

Cut all of that aid and refocus it in the WH. I'm quite sure Panama would be open to selling it back if we came calling. I'm sure their loans from China are like every other indentured servitude loan that China writes and would be happy to get out of it.

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Good timing, Mr President. 35 years and one day ago me and 20k of my closest buddies arrived in Panama to oust Noriega. We actually landed early on the 20th.

Good times!

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So did you walk off a plane or did you jump out of a perfectly good airplane waaaay too low to the ground?

Posters on Texags always oversimplify things and view things from a 3rd grade level. Unfortunately our president does the same .

Panama has a nasty history and so does the canal.

We created the country of Panama by taking it from Columbia in 1903. We had our warships in place, had Panama declare their independence from Columbia, and when Columbians showed up, we had troops already in place.

We then held Panama hostage in negotiations to build the canal and WAY underpaid them.

Then thousands of workers died building the thing.

Even though we owned the Canal, a ship passing through STILL PAID A TOLL. You people act like a ship paying tolls is something new.


So when Carter was President he had an option, pay over 5 billion to upgrade the canal, or turn it over to Panama and let them pay. This was 5 billion in 1976 dollars. Where do you want him to have gathered that money? Investors were starting a canal across Nicaragua and the only way to stop it was to add locks and channels allowing for wider ships in the P Canal. 5 Billion. Jimmy didn't have cash so he gave it back with new agreements that US warships could defend its neutrality.

So should we have paid the 5 billion? Of course, but it wasn't an option. We had 18% inflation and 18% interest rates. You think Congress is funding a P Canal expansion when we had stagflation? You think Carter didn't ask, that he just gave it away?


So little boy Donnie wants to take it back and thinks giving it back was bad? That is just an immature soundbite. WE COULDN"T AFFORD IT Donnie boy and if you take it back every single country in the entire world will boycott us. What good is the Panama Canal when no other country will trade with us?

I wish little man Donnie would think or at least ask his teachers before he runs his mouth. Now half the country is going to be talking about taking back the Panama Canal for the next few years when it isn't an option.

Hey Nav said:

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Quote:

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Good timing, Mr President. 35 years and one day ago me and 20k of my closest buddies arrived in Panama to oust Noriega. We actually landed early on the 20th.

Good times!

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So did you walk off a plane or did you jump out of a perfectly good airplane waaaay too low to the ground?

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Walked. I was in 7th Infantry so no jumping for us unfortunately. Were you there?

That ship has sailed... Time to build a new better wider canal and lock in a 99 year contract.

knoxtom said:

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Posters on Texags always oversimplify things and view things from a 3rd grade level. Unfortunately our president does the same .

Panama has a nasty history and so does the canal.

We created the country of Panama by taking it from Columbia in 1903. We had our warships in place, had Panama declare their independence from Columbia, and when Columbians showed up, we had troops already in place.

We then held Panama hostage in negotiations to build the canal and WAY underpaid them.

Then thousands of workers died building the thing.

Even though we owned the Canal, a ship passing through STILL PAID A TOLL. You people act like a ship paying tolls is something new.


So when Carter was President he had an option, pay over 5 billion to upgrade the canal, or turn it over to Panama and let them pay. This was 5 billion in 1976 dollars. Where do you want him to have gathered that money? Investors were starting a canal across Nicaragua and the only way to stop it was to add locks and channels allowing for wider ships in the P Canal. 5 Billion. Jimmy didn't have cash so he gave it back with new agreements that US warships could defend its neutrality.

So should we have paid the 5 billion? Of course, but it wasn't an option. We had 18% inflation and 18% interest rates. You think Congress is funding a P Canal expansion when we had stagflation? You think Carter didn't ask, that he just gave it away?


So little boy Donnie wants to take it back and thinks giving it back was bad? That is just an immature soundbite. WE COULDN"T AFFORD IT Donnie boy and if you take it back every single country in the entire world will boycott us. What good is the Panama Canal when no other country will trade with us?

I wish little man Donnie would think or at least ask his teachers before he runs his mouth. Now half the country is going to be talking about taking back the Panama Canal for the next few years when it isn't an option.

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LOLOL.

For those keeping track:

- Canada may become the 51st state.
- The US may launch a "soft invasion" of Mexico to take out the cartels.
- We are taking over the Panama Canal.

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) December 22, 2024

Panama responded to Trump’s tweet about the Panama Canal.

Then Trump responded by renaming the canal with “welcome to the United States Canal”. pic.twitter.com/snYqWnrdM1

— Wall Street Mav (@WallStreetMav) December 22, 2024

And Greenland is an 'absolute necessity.' !!!

President Trump:
"For purposes of national security and freedom, the US feels that the ownership of Greenland is a necessity."

When we buy Greenland should we call it MAGADONIA? pic.twitter.com/FK53Wo1xJ1

— Eric Schmitt (@Eric_Schmitt) December 23, 2024

nortex97 said:

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And Greenland is an 'absolute necessity.' !!!

President Trump:
"For purposes of national security and freedom, the US feels that the ownership of Greenland is a necessity."

When we buy Greenland should we call it MAGADONIA? pic.twitter.com/FK53Wo1xJ1

— Eric Schmitt (@Eric_Schmitt) December 23, 2024

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He talked about buying Greenland in his first term.

Let's do it! When the ice caps melt due to global warming, we will want to have the inside track on all of the exposed resources.

That's hilarious.

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Walked. I was in 7th Infantry so no jumping for us unfortunately. Were you there?

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Yep, I was one of your 20,000 close buddies. We took off on a very cold Georgia evening with a C-130 packed with Rangers from the 75th, followed by 5 more C-130s.

Their mission was to drop in to secure Torrijos Tocumen Airport, which they accomplished in fine style.

Isn't the leader of Panama an Aggie?

PS - this is all posturing to allow Trump to create an arbitrage to enable him to demand effective veto rights on Chinese ownership/influence in the PC.

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We all know how to use Google like you did to look up the canal's history. And please stop with the most ironic ad homs.

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I don't know, Google would have given him accurate numbers for inflation and interest rates in 1977. Maybe he can find some 3rd graders to show him how to get the numbers right.

Probably take Cuba for free., dust off, little buffing and flip it to a MAGA billionaire. Springboard that cash for expenses taking Panama.

annie88 said:

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On a sidenote, I got to interview the then Aggie President of Panama Martn Torrijos '87 in 2007ish

I was the editor of the Texas Aggie magazine at that time and it was for an article. I remember him being very nice.

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He is extremely nice and a good family friend. He's unbelievably low key and not a pretentious bone in him.

He's also the one who pushed through the expansion that Panama paid for, not the US. So, which part of the canal does Trump want. Only the part we built or the bigger, better part that Panama built and paid for?

"Then-Panamanian President Martn Torrijos formally proposed the project on 24 April 2006, saying it would transform Panama into a First World country. A national referendum approved the proposal by a 76.8 percent majority on 22 October the same year, and the Cabinet and National Assembly followed suit. The project formally began in 2007."

FTACo88-FDT24dad said:

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Isn't the leader of Panama an Aggie?

PS - this is all posturing to allow Trump to create an arbitrage to enable him to demand effective veto rights on Chinese ownership/influence in the PC.

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Former president. Not current.

titan said:

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Agree with that. As said, its probably a great idea now -- as its a shortcut to walling off another caravan type moment from anything further south, which simplifies the problem north of the Canal barrier in turn. Basic stuff.

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The only thing further south is South America. The caravans and almost all off the illegals coming here are Mexicans & Central Americans

Sq 17 said:

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titan said:

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Agree with that. As said, its probably a great idea now -- as its a shortcut to walling off another caravan type moment from anything further south, which simplifies the problem north of the Canal barrier in turn. Basic stuff.

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The only thing further south is South America. The caravans and almost all off the illegals coming here are Mexicans & Central Americans

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Can you quantify the numbers of Illegals flying in from Columbia, Venezuela, Peru, Equador, Chile, Bolivia, etc., that are being checked in through CBP apps? And never appear on the "encounters list" or "known gotaways?"

And those Illegals may not all be South Americans, but Chinese, Terrorists, gangsta's from other countries as well.

Smartest thing Biden Admin did was help fund a Panamanian effort to prevent Illegals from crossing through the Darien jungle, and NGO's transporting them to the Costa Rican border, to continue their journey to our Southern Border, but it helped them control the message, Mayorkas is still lying through his teeth...

Nothing has been cut off yet...nothing. It's just taking a different mode of transport. These NGO's just provide Dems plausible deniability...still costs each of us tax dollars.

Hey Nav said:

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Walked. I was in 7th Infantry so no jumping for us unfortunately. Were you there?

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Yep, I was one of your 20,000 close buddies. We took off on a very cold Georgia evening with a C-130 packed with Rangers from the 75th, followed by 5 more C-130s.

Their mission was to drop in to secure Torrijos Tocumen Airport, which they accomplished in fine style.

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That's awesome. Yeah we landed there the next morning in a C-5. Little nicer flight than a C-130. lol

Panama is actually on the list of my "it's a small world" stories. We were in David when Noriega was captured and the people there were amazing. My battalion had taken over the airport there and they decided to let the locals come in and run the food court as it were and to let them bring us home cooked meals each night for dinner. For 10 days they brought huge bowls of pasta and chicken and fed an entire battalion buffet style. It was an awesome experience for sure.

Fast forward to about 15 years ago and my daughter is in 3rd grade in Bryan. Some random day I went to have lunch with her and a little girl sat next to me at the table and started talking to me. She said she was born in Panama so I told her I had gone to Panama when I was a soldier in the Army. Then she told me her mom lived in David as a child and told her stories about helping her family feed the soldiers. I was speechless. I told her I wanted to meet her mom but they moved and it never happened. Still, what a crazy story. Still get goosebumps telling it.

I was only 8 years old-

why the F did Carter give the Canal away?!?

we built it!

Story time.

I was working for a defense contractor and one of my coworkers was a Columbian immigrant with the last name Noriega. One day some of the guys had a lunch discussion about the Panama situation and Mr. Noriega's heritage came up. Someone later that day was joking with him about it and he shared that he was quite likely Noriega's half-brother. Seems that he grew up on the Columbian near-side of the border and the dictator grew up on the Panama near-side. Both of them had an absentee father known to have had multiple families on both sides of the border. I had never thought about it before that moment, but when I looked at his face & body type I realized that if he took off his glasses then he could have been the body double of the dictator. Still thinking that it was just a fun discussion and we were all like "no way" when he stated that somebody sure thought it to be true because about half of his mail arrived with signs of it being opened.

FWIW

agent-maroon said:

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Story time.

I was working for a defense contractor and one of my coworkers was a Columbian immigrant with the last name Noriega. One day some of the guys had a lunch discussion about the Panama situation and Mr. Noriega's heritage came up. Someone later that day was joking with him about it and he shared that he was quite likely Noriega's half-brother. Seems that he grew up on the Columbian near-side of the border and the dictator grew up on the Panama near-side. Both of them had an absentee father known to have had multiple families on both sides of the border. I had never thought about it before that moment, but when I looked at his face & body type I realized that if he took off his glasses then he could have been the body double of the dictator. Still thinking that it was just a fun discussion and we were all like "no way" when he stated that somebody sure thought it to be true because about half of his mail arrived with signs of it being opened.

FWIW

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Likely he is.

Lots of people handle these situations differently. Martin Torrijos (the Aggie and former Panamanian President) was the son of Gen. Omar Torrijos who was a dictator and the one who negotiated the canal treaty with Carter. Martin was not the son of Torrijos' wife. His mother was one of Gen. Torrijos'' mistresses. But the General openly claimed Martin and supported him and his mother. He didn't try to hide it or deny it. The General actual supported him so much that he and his circle of friends openly stated that he foresaw qualities in Martin that Martin should one day become president. All of Martin's Panamanian friends would say "Martin with one day be President of Panama" - I thought it was a nice thing to say but at the time I thought that's a pretty slim chance.

I don't think Martin would mind me saying all that as it is pretty open knowledge. Martin is an incredible Aggie and person. He's an example of why we need to remember that there are very smart and accomplished people behind all these things (and you've maybe sat in a classroom at A&M with them) and just doing flag plant social media and demanding it back is childish.

A goodwill gesture to return operation to the people of Panama, no doubt, so no one thought we were big meanies. Carter never resisted one idiotic idea proposed by his moronic staff.

Today, it's basically the China canal.

This is a fact.

We aren’t taking the canal back from Panama.

We are taking it back from China. https://t.co/VxmdUEcOnI

— Matt Gaetz (@mattgaetz) December 23, 2024