by Daniel Oliver
Reagan’s claim—'We built it, we paid for it, it’s ours'—resonates as America confronts China’s growing influence over the strategic Panama Canal.
Back in 1978, William F. Buckley Jr. engaged in a two-hour televised debate with Ronald Reagan, at the time the former governor of California and future president of the United States, on whether or not to ratify two treaties that would give the Panama Canal to Panama. People who don’t know the canal’s history might say “give back” the Panama Canal to Panama, but in fact the canal had never belonged to Panama—as Reagan made clear during the debate—and therefore it couldn’t be given “back.”
There were other debaters (James Burnham, George Will, Admiral Zumwalt, Pat Buchanan, inter alia), but the chief antagonists were Buckley and Reagan.
Some months after the debate, driving up the road to Rancho del Cielo, Reagan’s ranch near Santa Barbara, Buckley passed three signs Reagan had posted alongside the road: “We Built it.” “We Paid for it.” “It’s ours.”
Those signs summed up, more or less, at least part of Reagan’s position in their televised debate.
It is instructive to revisit the debate now in light of what President Trump has proposed: taking back the canal because, he says, the United States is being ripped off by Panama. Whether he really believes that only he knows, and his proposal sounds like, at least, the opening salvo in what may be a long discussion on the future of the canal: the first bid in the art of another deal.
But the real problem, which Trump will get to in time, is the security of the canal, which is now being threatened by the Chinese.
We, the U.S., built the canal. People had tried for decades to build a canal there. And failed. But the U.S. succeeded.
Buckley was surprisingly and uncharacteristically blasé about the fragility of Panamanian responsibility and more concerned about what not giving the canal to Panama would say about the United States.
Not so Reagan. As he said during the debate: “The Panama Canal Zone is not a last vestige of colonialism wrested from the Republic of Panama by force and coercion. Our navy did not intervene to bring about the secession of Panama from Colombia, nor did it then intimidate Panama into granting the United States the Canal Zone in perpetuity. Without the canal, there wouldn’t be a Panama. Panama tried more than 50 times to free itself from Colombia. No shots were fired. The revolution was bloodless, and it came about because Panama wanted us to build a canal.”
But there’s more: we paid for it. Reagan said, “We went into the zone and bought in fee simple all the privately owned land from the owners, including even homestead claims and squatter’s rights. I’ve seen the figure for those purchases set at $16.3 million. This should answer the charges of some treaty advocates that we have no claim to ownership of anything in Panama. We built a sanitation system for their cities. We built bridges, highways, and a water and power system. Our greatest contribution, of course, was the elimination of disease—mainly yellow fever—which had killed more than 20,000 of the French workers on the canal.”
In other words, we didn’t build only the canal; we built Panama.
But that, we will be told, was then. What about now?
Now the world has changed.
Fox News reports: “Chinese companies have been increasingly involved in infrastructure, electricity, and logistics around the canal. Huawei, the Chinese technology company, provides digital and telecommunications products and services throughout the country.”
The Atlantic Council notes: “[I]f costs continue to rise, and if China continues to expand its presence around the canal, then there may be louder calls to resurrect the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. This corollary asserts the United States’ right to intervene in the region to ensure stability and prevent foreign interference.”
And who can doubt that President Trump would be a fan of the Roosevelt Corollary?
Panama claims that the fees it charges the U.S. are its normal fees. Nevertheless, those fees have a huge impact on U.S. shipping because of the amount of U.S. shipping that goes through the canal. Trump considers them to be exorbitant.
The Atlantic Council also notes: “Panama’s willingness to relinquish critical economic control of strategically significant areas and infrastructure—a hallmark of China’s Belt and Road Initiative strategy—casts doubt on Panama’s resolve and capacity to effectively safeguard the canal’s neutrality as agreed to in the treaty. The costs of a neutrality breach are significant enough that the United States may be justified in taking preemptive action.”
General Laura Richardson, commander of the U.S. Southern Command, said in 2022, “Flying along the Panama Canal and looking at all the state-owned enterprises from the PRC [People’s Republic of China] on each side of the Panama Canal, I worry . . . they look like civilian companies or state-owned enterprises that could be used for dual [i.e., military as well as civilian] use.”
Buckley’s position in the debate was strangely internationalist: “In a situation of hostility short of the exchange of missiles, we would desire mobility through the canal. That mobility is more easily affected if we have the cooperation of the local population.” And “The treaties create incentives for Panama to manage the canal responsibly.”
Perhaps, but how likely is that cooperation now given the growing influence of China?
Buckley did recognize the possibility of future danger, saying that the treaties “explicitly grant us the authority to intervene should the canal’s operations or neutrality be threatened.” But he was silent on the difficulties of undoing the treaties.
Reagan seems to have been more prescient: although the danger from China in 1978 was not even a small cloud on the horizon, he seems to have sensed the possibility—perhaps the likelihood—that powerful forces might, or would, arise that would threaten the U.S.’s ability to use the canal. Clearly, Reagan was correct in his surmise.
Now, almost a half-century later, Donald Trump, seeing the danger from China and wanting to act before China’s position becomes unassailable, may be channeling his inner Ronald Reagan as he prepares us for dealing with China.
As Trump considers what to do, or if he has already decided to take back the canal, he should remind America that, in Reagan’s words, “We built it. We paid for it. It’s ours.”
***
Daniel Oliver is Chairman Emeritus of the Board of the Education and Research Institute and a Director of the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy in San Francisco. In addition to serving as Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission under President Reagan, he was Executive Editor and subsequently Chairman of the Board of William F. Buckley Jr.’s National Review.
Email Daniel Oliver at Daniel.Oliver@TheCandidAmerican.com.
Daniel Oliver
Source: https://amgreatness.com/2025/01/23/we-built-it-we-paid-for-it-its-ours/
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