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President-elect Donald J. Trump\u2019s suggestion on Tuesday that the United States might reclaim the Panama Canal \u2014 including by force \u2014 unsettled Panamanians, who used to live with the presence of the U.S. military in the canal zone and were invaded by American military forces once before.<\/p>\n
Few appeared to be taking Mr. Trump\u2019s threats<\/a> very seriously, but Panama\u2019s foreign minister, Javier Mart\u00ednez-Acha, made his country\u2019s position clear at a news conference hours after the American president-elect mused aloud about retaking the canal, which the United States built but turned over to Panama in the late 1990s.<\/p>\n \u201cThe sovereignty of our canal is nonnegotiable and is part of our history of struggle and an irreversible conquest,\u201d Mr. Mart\u00ednez-Acha said. \u201cLet it be clear: The canal belongs to the Panamanians and it will continue to be that way.\u201d<\/p>\n Experts said that Mr. Trump\u2019s real goal might have been intimidation, perhaps aimed at securing favorable treatment from Panama\u2019s government for American ships that use the passageway. More broadly, they said, he might be trying to send a forceful message across a region that will be critical to his goals of controlling the flow of migrants toward the U.S. border.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIf the U.S. wanted to flout international law and act like Vladimir Putin, the U.S. could invade Panama and recover the canal,\u201d said Benjamin Gedan<\/a>, director of the Wilson Center\u2019s Latin America Program in Washington, adding, \u201cNo one would see it as a legitimate act, and it would bring not only grievous damage to its image, but instability to the canal.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In recent weeks, as he prepares to take office, Mr. Trump has talked repeatedly about not just taking over the Panama Canal, but also about buying Greenland from Denmark (though it is not, as it happens, for sale). He returned to those expansionist themes in a rambling speech on Tuesday at Mar-a-Lago, his estate in Florida, and this time refused to rule out using military force to retake the canal.<\/p>\n \u201cIt might be that you\u2019ll have to do something,\u201d Mr. Trump said.<\/p>\n Mr. Trump\u2019s comments have not sat well with the people of Panama.<\/p>\n Ra\u00fal Arias de Para, an ecotourism entrepreneur and a descendant of one of the country\u2019s founding politicians, said talk of American military force stirred memories among his compatriots of the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989. The military action then, he noted, was aimed at deposing the country\u2019s authoritarian leader, Manuel Noriega.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThat was not an invasion to colonize or take territory,\u201d Mr. Arias de Para said. \u201cIt was tragic for those who lost their loved ones, but it liberated us from a formidable dictatorship.\u201d<\/p>\n Of Mr. Trump\u2019s threat to send the military to retake the canal, he said, \u201cIt\u2019s a possibility that\u2019s so remote, so absurd.\u201d The United States has the right under the treaty to defend the canal if its operations are threatened, he said, \u201cbut that\u2019s not the case.\u201d<\/p>\n Some experts said Mr. Trump might be hoping to obtain assurances from Panama\u2019s president, Jos\u00e9 Ra\u00fal Mulino, that he would do even more to stop the flow of migrants through the Dari\u00e9n Gap<\/a>, the jungle stretch that hundreds of thousands of migrants<\/a> have crossed on their way north, fueling a surge at the U.S. border.<\/p>\n Mr. Mulino has already pushed hard to deter migrants.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no country in which the United States has found greater collaboration on migration than Panama,\u201d said Jorge Eduardo Ritter, a former foreign affairs minister and Panama\u2019s first canal affairs minister.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n On his first day in office, Mr. Mulino approved an arrangement<\/a> with the United States to curb migration through the Dari\u00e9n region with the help of U.S.-funded flights to repatriate migrants entering Panama illegally. Since then, the number of crossings has dropped drastically<\/a>, with the lowest figures seen in nearly two years.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n If Mr. Trump\u2019s administration carries out mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, it will also need countries in Latin America and the Caribbean to agree to receive flights carrying not only their own deported citizens, but also people from other nations, something Panama has not agreed<\/a> to do.<\/p>\n Experts said it was just as likely that Mr. Trump was angling for a discount for U.S. ships, which make up the largest proportion of vessels transiting the 40-mile passage between oceans. Fees have gone up as the Panama Canal Authority has been grappling with drought<\/a> and the cost of creating a new reservoir to counter it.<\/p>\n \u201cI imagine the president-elect would settle for a U.S. discount at the canal and declare victory,\u201d said Mr. Gedan, of the Wilson Center.<\/p>\n Many experts on the region, he said, view Mr. Trump\u2019s combative remarks as \u201cstandard operating procedure for a once-and-future president who uses threats and intimidation, even with U.S. partners and friendly countries.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n After lengthy negotiations, the United States, then under President Jimmy Carter, agreed in the late 1970s to a plan to gradually turn the canal it had built in Panama over to the country where it lay. The exchange was completed in December 1999.<\/p>\n Theories about why Mr. Trump appears focused on the canal were swirling this week. <\/span>Some noted that ceding the canal to Panama has long been a sore point for Republicans.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Others said Mr. Trump was upset that ports at the ends of the canal are controlled by companies out of Hong Kong. Panama\u2019s president has dismissed those concerns.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is absolutely no Chinese interference or participation in anything to do with the Panama Canal,\u201d Mr. Mulino said in a news conference in December. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n A small country with more than four million inhabitants and no active military, as per its Constitution, Panama would be in no position to stave off the U.S. military. Protests, however, would most likely erupt, and might paralyze the Panama Canal, with disastrous effects on global trade and particularly on the United States, experts agreed.<\/p>\n Panama, said Mr. Ritter, the former foreign minister, can only hope the United States abides by international law. <\/span>\u201cThis is the case of the egg against the stone,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n