When he thinks out loud, he says disturbing things. The North American map that his words draw takes on an enormous dimension. If these phrases, which sound bizarre, become reality, the United States would triple its territory, bringing its dimensions closer to those of the vast empires of conquerors such as Genghis Khan, the Roman Caesars, Alexander the Great, Ottoman sultans and Russian tsars Ivan IV Vasilievich, Peter I and Catherine the Great.
The world is stunned by conflicts and filled with uncertainties. That’s why he listened to donald trump as if he were expressing his usual lucubrations: that he is going to raise the wall to prevent the entry of “murderers and rapists” from Mexico; that many immigrants eat Americans’ pets and relieve themselves in the streets and squares; that the “fucking left” is the “deep state” that it must be destroyed to “make America great again”; that is going to end the war in Ukraine with a stroke of a pen and is going to raise tariff walls to stop imports from China and force the return of North American companies that left in search of cheap labor.
However, that lethargic speech of “Trumpean” trivia suddenly gave rise to the verbalization of objectives that would have seismic consequences. Buy Greenland from the Danes, confiscate the Panama Canal, annex Canada to convert that developed democracy into the 51st State of the Union, send the army to Mexico to wage war against the drug trafficking cartels that the Mexican government does not want to face and, incidentally, change the name of the Gulf of Mexico To Americanize it, it sounds like Napoleonic delirium.
However, even with delusional components, this expansionist discourse has a geopolitical and geostrategic logic. Therefore, it may be necessary to take seriously this vision that Donald Trump began to verbalize before his return to office. Oval Office. If the presidency decides to move from words to actions, the United States could achieve unprecedented territorial growth, in many cases going beyond International Law and the reasonableness that must prevail on the world stage. What he describes is the greatest expansionism in history after the British, Spanish and Portuguese overseas empires.
In the case of the interoceanic passage that is on the isthmus of Central America, there is no legal logic of any kind. The intention to confiscate the Panama Canal announced by the New York magnate would be exclusively an act of force, without justifications in International Law. But, in any case, unlike what he raised about Canada, there is a historical basis.
This foundation does not prove him right, but rather indicates a foundation for such a claim: glimpsing the strategic importance of the isthmus and the economic and geopolitical value of a passage that connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceansThus avoiding the long journey around Cape Horn, the United States made the decision to forge the link between Colombia and its province called New Granada at the time, which, as soon as it became independent from Spain in 1821, voluntarily joined the created State. and led by Bolívar.
The 20th century dawned with the outbreak of the so-called “Thousand Days War.” That conflict paved the way for Panama to become independent in 1903 and immediately obtain North American recognition of its brand new State.
The interoceanic canal project existed in the United States before Panama existed. And he built it as soon as Ferdinand Lesseps’ French company, which had begun work on the isthmus in 1881, went bankrupt. That, in any case, gives some historical framework to Trump’s threat to take over the Panama Canal, taking the situation back to the time prior to the agreements reached by Jimmy Carter and Omar Torrijos.
The ultraconservative leader praised Carter at his funeral, describing him as a “good man.” By the way, he was, and he was also a just man. That is why he agreed to negotiate with Torrijos what seemed inconceivable: that a superpower would hand over the sovereignty and control of such a strategic point to a tiny and underdeveloped country, whose independence was devised in offices of the White House.
Carter resisted all pressure and complied with what was agreed with the Panamanian nationalist president, simply because it was fair for him to do so.
Trump is willing to reverse that act of justicesimply because he considers it inconvenient for his project of return to that “American arcadia” of self-absorbed existence, unconcerned with what happens in other latitudes of the world, thanks to constituting a hinterland of extraordinary magnitude, a true territorial fortress.
(continue reading)
