Washington, D.C., February 3, 2025 - Continued U.S. control of the Panama Canal “looks like pure colonialism,” Henry Kissinger advised President Gerald Ford during a National Security Council meeting in May 1975, 50 years ago. “Internationally, failure to conclude a treaty is going to get us into a cause celebre, with harassment, demonstrations, bombing of embassies,” Kissinger warned, according to a declassified memorandum of conversation posted today by the National Security Archive. The lead negotiator for a new Canal Zone treaty, Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker, reinforced that point: “I have no doubt that failure in these negotiations would entail unacceptable risks,” Bunker told the president, “including negative effects beyond Panama which would disrupt our relations with Latin America, lead to world condemnation, and hamper the operation of the waterway.” According to Kissinger, “This is no issue to face the world on.” The NSC ”memcon” is featured in a new Electronic Briefing Book published today by the National Security Archive as confrontation over the Panama Canal escalates into a central U.S. foreign policy and international issue. On February 2, Secretary of State Marco Rubio held meetings in Panama to press the Trump administration’s claims that the presence of a Chinese company in the Canal Zone violates the neutrality clause of the 1977 Treaty. “Secretary Rubio made clear that this status quo is unacceptable and that absent immediate changes, it would require the United States to take measures necessary to protect its rights under the treaty,” the State Department said in a threatening summary of the meeting. During his inaugural address, President Trump said, “We didn’t give it to China. We gave it to Panama, and we’re taking it back”—an ominous statement that prompted Panama to file a complaint to the United Nations that the U.S. is in violation of the UN Charter prohibiting “the threat or use of force” against the territorial integrity of member nations. But during Secretary Rubio’s visit to Panama, Trump reiterated that threat: “We’re going to take it back, or something very powerful is going to happen.” The documents posted today include CIA reports, NSC briefing papers, White House meeting minutes, telephone transcripts and audio tapes dating back to the Kennedy era. Although the current Canal accords were signed by President Jimmy Carter and Panamanian leader General Omar Torrijos in September 1977, negotiations for a new treaty ceding sovereignty of the Canal Zone back to Panama spanned a period of 13 years—from 1964 to 1977—during the Johnson, Nixon, Ford and Carter administrations. Almost a half century after complex and protracted bilateral diplomatic efforts finally removed the Canal Zone as a contentious and internationally repudiated symbol of U.S. hegemony in the Latin America region, these fascinating archival records provide a contextual, factual overview to understand and appreciate the historical foundations of the foreign policy crisis that is escalating today over Panama. “As the U.S. threatens a return to an era of gunboat diplomacy in Panama,” notes Archive analyst Peter Kornbluh, “the historical record of the Canal Zone negotiations reflects the pragmatic promise of actual diplomacy to advance U.S. interests.” |