Esteemed Mr. Trump:
I wish to make it known to you that the “Esteemed” of the address, has nothing to do with sentiment, but with protocol. There are forms to address a president. Be it who it may. The objective of this note, is not to talk about the thirty four crimes in which you have been found guilty, nor of the attempt to steal the 2020 elections, nor of the multiple women who have accused you of sexual harassment and rape, nor of your multiple swindles and fraudulent bankruptcies.. Those topics, should have been of interest for the voters of the United States, where evidently many did not consider them relevant nor determining factors of character and the values that a governing official should possess. It is their decision, and they must be respected based on the rules of democracy. The same democracy that in 2020 you attempted to ignore when you incited a band of savages to prevent Joe Biden’s victory from getting certified.
Taking the opportunity now that you assumed possession, indoors and with very few people, I write you in order to clarify concepts that you seem to not have clarity when you refer to Panama, as part of your expansionist plans in the best colonial style. Even so, it is just to accept that what has been said about our country and our Canal, can be a product of ignorance and myth mania. Each person will decide why that is.
So relax and try to analyze these points that can be relevant to the topic:
1. The Panama Canal is called as such because it is in Panama. In the nineteenth century the French began construction and could not complete it due to environmental and public health issues. A Frenchman named Phillipe Buneau-Varilla obtained the stock of the French company and did all the lobbying necessary for the United States to take charge of the construction, while at the same time facilitating the separation between Panama and Colombia, since the Colombian government did not accept the conditions under which the U.S. wanted to take over the project. Buneau-Varilla signed a treaty which gave the U.S. perpetual rights over the Canal. This infamous treaty was replaced, by mutual agreement between the two countries, by the Torrijos-Carter treaties in 1977.
2. Between 1904 and 1914, when your country took charge of the construction, the cost to the U.S. was approximately $375 million, which would correspond to $10 billion in 2025 dollars, and not “a trillion” as you lied recently.
3. In the construction of the Canal 38 thousand U.S. people did not die. Between 1904 and 1914, when the U.S. built the Canal, less than 380 U.S. citizens died. Although zeros do not count, when they are put to the right of the 380, they become relevant. In total, during the construction some 20 thousand people died, the majority during the French phase. During the American phase some 5,600 died, the majority Caribbeans from Jamaica and Barbados, in addition to Spaniards, Greeks, Panamanians, and Italians, who were journeymen that did the dangerous jobs of excavation and explosives. The 350 Americans, were engineers and supervisors, and the majority died of illnesses before the region was sanitized. Your number of dead is another lie.
4. The transfer of the Canal to Panama, in the year 2000, was not done through a “symbolic one dollar sale” as you lied recently. It was a product of many years of diplomatic negotiations, based on respect and not threats. The approval of the Senate came thanks to the commitment of President Jimmy Carter, who signed the treaty in 1977 guided by his moral commitment and his sense of justice toward Panamanian aspirations to recuperate part of its territory. Understand that I do not pretend that you neither share nor understand that. We understand your limitations.
5. The policy of tolls in the Canal is an open and transparent process in which Panama, the users and the shippers from all the countries participate. According to what is established in the treaty, tolls are the same for all commercial and military ships, regardless of which country they are from. That the U.S. gets charged more than other countries is another lie. It is charged the same as the rest.
6. China has nothing to do with the administration of the Canal. A Hong Kong company, Hutchington Wampoa, which is the primary operator of container ports in the world and also controls ports in the U.S., administers ports adjacent to the Canal, but it does not control the traffic. Another port, Manzanillo International Terminal, is controlled by a U.S. company. The adjudication of all those ports came from public bidding processes. In the responsibility of flow of ships, China does not participate in any way. That, is another lie.
7. When you say you want to retake the Canal for your benefit, I suppose you mean the “original Canal.” In 2016 Panama expanded the Canal to increase its capacity, and in that effort the U.S. was not involved.
8. When you say, twenty-five years later, that you want back the control of the Canal, that is exactly like Mexico saying it wants back California and Texas. Or that Russia wants back Alaska, because the petroleum would benefit their economy. Panama is a small country that worked hard to recuperate its Canal, after the U.S. obtained its investment and then some. The “retaking of the Canal” because you feel like it, has no place among civilized people. Well, among civilized people…
This has turned out a bit long, and I understand that reading is not one of your virtues. If necessary, tell someone of thought in your circle (if you find one), to read it to you and explain it with cartoons. I repeat that Panama is a country like any other, which has performed its duties in administering the Canal for the benefit of all the countries of the world, and that aspires for its rights over its territories to be respected. Imposing your will through threats is not the way to resolve differences between countries. That is what diplomatic channels are for. Especially when there is already an agreed upon treaty between them.
Cordially (this is also protocol)…
A Panamanian
The author is a Panamanian doctor.
Source: La Prensa de Panamá (Panama Press), January 26, 2025
