Key points
- Roosevelt dispatched US warships to Panama City in support of Panamanian independence
- Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty of 1903 provided US with a 10-mile wide strip of land for the canal
- Completed in 1914, the Canal symbolised US technological prowess and economic power
ISLAMABAD: Born from “gunboat diplomacy,” the Panama Canal is under threat from United States (US) saber rattling once again.
According to CNN, more than 100 years after the construction of the engineering marvel that linked the Atlantic and Pacific oceans – and 25 years after the canal was returned to Panama by the US – the waterway faces renewed intimidation from an American president.
Lives lost
The Panama Canal — which Trump has dubbed a modern “wonder of the world” — was built by the United States and opened in 1914 at the cost of thousands of lives of laborers, mostly people of African descent from Barbados, Jamaica and elsewhere in the Caribbean, according to AFP.

—Photo from Social Media/ X
President Theodore Roosevelt oversaw the realisation of a long-term US goal—a trans-isthmian canal. Throughout the 1800s, American and British leaders and businessmen wanted to ship goods quickly and cheaply between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, according to the US government “Office of Historian” website.
To that end, in 1850 the US and Great Britain negotiated the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty to rein in rivalry over a proposed canal through the Central American Republic of Nicaragua. The Anglo-American canal, however, never went beyond the planning stages. French attempts to build a canal through Panama (province of Colombia) advanced further.

Led by Ferdinand de Lesseps—the builder of the Suez Canal in Egypt—the French began excavating in 1880. Malaria, yellow fever, and other tropical diseases conspired against the de Lesseps campaign and after nine years and a loss of approximately 20,000 lives, the French attempt went bankrupt.
In spite of such setbacks, American interest in a canal continued unabated.
Hay-Pauncefote Treaty of 1901
The Hay-Pauncefote Treaty of 1901 abrogated the earlier Clayton-Bulwer Treaty and licensed the United States to build and manage its own canal. Following heated debate over the location of the proposed canal, on June 19, 1902, the US Senate voted in favor of building the canal through Panama.

Panamian independence
According to the US government “Office of Historian” website, within six months, Secretary of State John Hay signed a treaty with Colombian Foreign Minister Tomás Herrán to build the new canal. The financial terms were unacceptable to Colombia’s congress, and it rejected the offer. President Roosevelt responded by dispatching US warships to Panama City (on the Pacific) and Colón (on the Atlantic) in support of Panamanian independence. Colombian troops were unable to negotiate the jungles of the Darién Gap and Panama declared independence on November 3, 1903.

The newly declared Republic of Panama immediately named Philippe Bunau-Varilla (a French engineer who had been involved in the earlier de Lesseps canal attempt) as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary.
Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty of 1903
According to the US government “Office of Historian” website, in his new role, Bunau-Varilla negotiated the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty of 1903, which provided the United States with a 10-mile wide strip of land for the canal, a one-time $10 million payment to Panama, and an annual annuity of $250,000.


The United States also agreed to guarantee the independence of Panama. Completed in 1914, the Panama Canal symbolized US technological prowess and economic power. Although US control of the canal eventually became an irritant to US-Panamanian relations, at the time it was heralded as a major foreign policy achievement.