Donald Trump and Panama: A Return to 1903?
Citizens protest against U.S. attempts to control the Panama Canal, 2025. X/ @AlertaMundoNews
By: Olmedo Beluche
April 13, 2025 Hour: 10:09 am
A mobilization is beginning to defend national sovereignty, trampled by Yankee imperialism and local traitors.
In the eyes of Yankee imperialist ideology, the United States is the modern-day Roman Empire, and each American president must present himself, like the ancient Caesars, as the conqueror of some territory and the destroyer of some “barbarian” people. Donald Trump has no intention of being left behind in this goal, so from his inauguration speech, he set his sights on the “conquest” of Panama, which, in his imagination, is the equivalent of Julius Caesar’s Gaul.
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To make his ambition more magnificent, he attempted to convince the American public that the small Panamanian isthmus and its canal had been taken over by the evil military power of China, the United States’ rival. He claimed that Panama’s corrupt leaders (this part is true) had given away the Panama Canal—built by the U.S.—in exchange for a single dollar (false), and that its management had been transferred to the Chinese empire (which sounded like a joke—Panamanians laughed).
Being more of a showman than a warrior, Donald Trump needed flashy moves that looked like great victories while actually targeting easy objectives. Instead of acting like Julius Caesar conquering Gaul, Trump has behaved more like Caligula, who pretended to conquer Britain but settled for collecting seashells from the French coast to present as evidence of his triumph.
Knowing the corruption, submissiveness, and cowardice of the Panamanian government, led by Jose Raul Mulino, the Panamanian president of questionable legitimacy, Trump first sent an advance party led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. With just a display of his teeth, he got the Panamanian president to break the Belt and Road Initiative agreement with China, declare a freeze in diplomatic relations with that country, agree to receive migrants expelled from the U.S., and even accept a U.S. military base in Darien.
With the ground prepared, Trump sent his centurion, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, to Panama in the second week of April. Proudly, Hegseth returned to Washington with a Memorandum of Understanding.
This Memorandum of Understanding grants the United States three military bases along the Panama Canal, reviving sites that had been decommissioned in 1999 thanks to the generational struggle of the Panamanian people, embodied in the Torrijos-Carter Treaties of 1977. The bases handed over by Mulino’s government and his Minister of Security Frank Abrego are:
1. Howard Air Base, previously renamed Lieutenant Octavio Rodriguez, a Panamanian hero killed by U.S. troops during the invasion of December 20, 1989. This is an insult to the memory of the over 500 people officially reported killed during that U.S. military aggression.
2. Rodman Naval Base, renamed Vasco Nuñez de Balboa and Captain Noel A. Rodriguez, located on the west side of the canal entrance, directly across from the port of Balboa, currently (until now) operated by the Chinese company Panama Ports.
3. Sherman Air-Naval Base, renamed Cristobal Colon, which includes an airport, port, and firing range. It is located on the western, Caribbean side of the canal, across from the city of Colon and the port of Cristobal (also operated by Panama Ports, a Chinese company).
4. Additionally, through a Joint Declaration (whose text has not yet been made public) signed by Canal Minister Jose Icaza and Hegseth, Trump secured free passage for U.S. Navy vessels through the Panama Canal, supposedly at “no cost” to Panama—a phrase whose meaning remains unclear.
5. An additional gift to Trump came in the form of an audit by Panama’s Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic on the contract with Chinese company Hutchison, which manages the ports of Balboa and Cristobal. Released on the day of Pete Hegseth’s arrival, the audit exposed economic abuses against Panama (similar to those committed by other transnational companies operating here) and may lead to the termination of the concession.
Mulino and his ministers are attempting to deceive the Panamanian people by claiming the Memorandum emphasizes respect for Panama’s “sovereignty” and avoids the term “military base.”
However, a military base is a military base if, as stated in Section 1 of the Memorandum: “U.S. personnel and U.S. contractors… may use authorized locations, facilities, and designated areas to conduct training, humanitarian activities, exercises, visits, store or install U.S. property, and other activities as mutually agreed upon by the Participants.” All of this at no cost to the United States (Section 5).
Section 2 refers to strengthening the “security relationship” to “address shared security challenges,” without defining them—though Hegseth repeatedly said in statements that the challenge is China.
Even though Section 6 claims that Panama retains primary responsibility for security in these areas, Section 7 states that “certain sections of the facilities and designated areas will be set aside for exclusive use by U.S. personnel,” with Panamanian security forces allowed access only with “prior notification.”
Section 11 of the memorandum states that U.S. personnel and “property” (including vehicles, vessels, and aircraft) will “remain under U.S. control,” including matters related to “waste generated by an incident or accident.”
Importantly, the Memorandum’s heading cites as its legal basis:
– The exchange of diplomatic notes titled “Agreement Between the Government of the Republic of Panama and the Government of the United States of America Concerning the Status of United States Personnel Temporarily Present in Panama”, signed on September 15 and 20, 2022;
– And the “Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement (US-PA-01)” between Panama’s Ministry of Public Security and the U.S. Department of Defense, signed on June 28, 2019.
This shows that the betrayal of the Martyrs of January 9, 1964, who fought under the slogan “No Bases”, had already begun under the administrations of Juan Carlos Varela (Panameñista Party) and Laurentino Cortizo (PRD). This policy of returning U.S. military presence to the Canal was in fact initiated under the Democratic administration of Joseph Biden—it is not solely a Trump initiative.
Trump is celebrating what appears to be an easy first victory, thanks to the help of a servile, bootlicking government like Mulino’s. In this, Donald Trump seems to be trying to emulate President William McKinley, whom he referenced in his January 20 inauguration speech. McKinley was the one who declared war on Spain in 1898, seizing its last colonies—Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam—bringing them under U.S. control and turning the country into an overseas imperial power.
That move put Panama in the crosshairs as a target for U.S. control, with the goal of building a canal that would allow the U.S. Navy to “defend” its imperial interests in both oceans. But McKinley was assassinated, and it fell to his successor, Theodore Roosevelt, to complete U.S. imperial expansion in the Isthmus of Panama.
Many Panamanians today are unaware that Roosevelt forced Panama’s separation from Colombia on November 3, 1903, through a military invasion involving more than ten battleships and thousands of soldiers, in order to impose the Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty. He later boasted, “I took Panama.”
For now, Donald Trump flaunts his small victory, but the Panamanian people are beginning to wake up to the betrayal just committed by Mulino.
A mobilization is beginning to defend national sovereignty, trampled by Yankee imperialism and local traitors, in which our people will find inspiration in the generations that came before us—like the Martyrs of January 1964, who stood against Yankee bullets shouting: NO BASES!
Autor: Olmedo Beluche
Fuente: teleSUR
The opinions expressed in this section do not necessarily represent those of teleSUR