President-elect Donald Trump has said he will take back control of the Panama Canal from the nation’s government if U.S. interests are not protected, in line with the Carter–Torrijos Treaty of 1977 under President Jimmy Carter.
One of the world’s busiest and most significant shipping routes, the Panama Canal cuts weeks of transit time off trade and travel—the majority of which is seeking access in and out of U.S. ports.
“Considered one of the Wonders of the Modern World, the Panama Canal opened for business 110 years ago and was built at huge cost to the United States in lives and treasure,” Trump said in a statement posted to Truth Social Dec. 21.
Around 5,600 workers died in efforts to build the canal, in addition to the 6,000 that died making the original Panama Railroad, according to official estimates.
The 51-mile-long canal transects the narrowest part of Central America to connect the otherwise separated Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, transforming a several-week and thousands-miles journey around Cape Horn to an 8- to 10-hour transit. It is a critical pathway for the rapid deployment of the U.S. Navy from its Atlantic bases on the U.S. East Coast to the Pacific.
The canal is currently Panama’s single largest source of income, and it generated almost $5 billion in revenue for the country in 2024, despite challenges posed by a regional drought.
Under the 1977 treaty, the United States handed sovereignty of the canal back to Panama over 20 years ending in 1999, although it retained the right to military action to secure the canal from foreign aggression or if it was being used to interfere with U.S. interests.
Trump said Panama has been charging the United States, its Navy, and corporations doing business in the United States “exorbitant prices and rates of passage.”