Colonia Americana… ¡No! Remembering Interventionism, Understanding Neoliberalism, and Continuing the Spirit of Resistance in Panamá
Since taking office, one of Donald Trump’s recurring talking points has been reclaiming U.S. control over the Panama Canal and Greenland. During last week’s State of the Union Address, Trump smugly declared, “To further enhance our national security, my administration will be reclaiming the Panama Canal,” prompting a standing ovation largely from his cabinet members.
As a 1.5 generation Panamanian immigrant in the United States, Trump’s inflammatory remarks trigger a deep rage within me. Repossessing the Panama Canal would not only violate international law, but it would also infringe upon national sovereignty. It would perpetuate the legacy of U.S.-sponsored violence in Panama – a history that has been met with resistance by Panamanians in the past and that will undoubtedly be resisted today.
Group of Balboa High School students carrying the Panamanian flag during nationalist student demonstrations on January 9, 1964, now commemorated as Martyrs’ Day in Panama.
Accessible via the public domain on Wikimedia Commons.
Small but Mighty: A Brief History of Interventionism in Panama
Panama – an isthmus that lies between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and connects Central and South America – is roughly the size of the state of South Carolina. The country has an estimated population of 4.57 million inhabitants and a GDP per capita of $20,090, the highest in Central America. Due to its strategic geopolitical location, foreign powers have sought to control Panama even before its inception as the country we know today.
Intervention in Panama dates back to the sixteenth century with the arrival of Spanish colonizers, who massacred the pueblos originarios and occupied the land for nearly 300 years. In 1846, the Republic of New Granada (now modern-day Colombia and Panama) signed a treaty allowing the United States to build a railroad across the isthmus, with the understanding that the far more “well-equipped” U.S. military would control the inhabitants of the Panamanian region on behalf of the government of New Granada. In the early 1900s, however, the U.S. government offered military support to separatist movements advocating for Panama's independence from Colombia. They did this to facilitate the construction of a transoceanic Canal and secure control of what would become the Panama Canal Zone, establishing an apartheid enclave that imported the racist Jim Crow laws of the U.S. South to oppress Panamanians as well as the majority Black West Indian contract workers who built the Canal.
During the State of the Union Address, Trump claimed that 38,000 Americans died during the construction of the Panama Canal, using this as justification for the Canal’s reversion to U.S. control. These claims, however, are patently false and reek of anti-Blackness. According to the Panama Canal Authority, 5,611 workers died due to accidents and diseases during U.S. construction of the Canal, but historians estimate that the actual death toll was much higher. Of the officially recorded 5,611 worker deaths, 80% were Black West Indians, mostly from Barbados and Jamaica.
Construction of the Panama Canal in 1913.
Accessible via the public domain on Wikimedia Commons.
The construction of the Canal was organized within a racialized, hierarchical system that involved workers from different parts of the world. Lesser has been written about the experiences of Black U.S. American workers, but it is known that they were subjected to the discriminatory practices that the United States imported to the Canal Zone. Even working-class European workers, mostly from Spain and Italy, were categorized as lesser in status than white U.S. Americans. However, it is important to emphasize that Black Caribbean migrants were relegated to the most dangerous, menial, and back-breaking forms of labor.
Control of the Canal was not returned to Panama until 1999, despite diplomatic negotiations in the 1970s being initially triggered by anti-imperialist riots that resulted in the deaths of around 22 martyrs who, in 1964, dared to fly the Panamanian flag in the occupied Canal Zone.
1989 U.S. invasion of Panama.
Accessible via the public domain on Wikimedia Commons.
The longstanding North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) published a list specifically of U.S. interventions in Panama, and a simple search of the phrase “U.S. interests” reveals the extent to which violent interventions have been justified in order to protect U.S. hegemony and property, often at the expense of Panamanian lives and sovereignty. Most notably, the 1989 invasion of Panama aimed at ousting CIA puppet General Manuel Noriega – after he turned against U.S. government interests – resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Panamanians who, in the words of then-president George H. W. Bush, were killed “to defend democracy in Panama, to combat drug trafficking, and to protect the integrity of the Panama Canal Treaty.”
1989 U.S. invasion of Panama.
Accessible via the public domain on Wikimedia Commons.
General Noriega was Panama’s most notorious dictator, amassing a personal fortune smuggling cocaine to the United States and enacting a regime of media repression, hypermilitarization, and the brutal persecution of political opponents. He maintained close ties with the Israeli military and Mossad, having received parachute training in Israel and forged a strong connection with Israeli intelligence officer Michael Harari, who handled arms transactions for Noriega and his militarized police force as well as advised Panama’s intelligence establishment. Noriega was also trained by the U.S. military at the Panama Canal Zone’s School of the Americas (SOA), now rebranded as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC) and relocated to Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia. Anthropologist Lesley Gill reveals how one of WHINSEC’s primary ideological tools remains imbuing Latin American soldiers with a sense of U.S. exceptionalism and the mission of imparting “democracy” in their countries of origin.
In summary, Trump’s reclamation of the Canal would serve to further historical U.S. economic and military interests in the region, as well as the violence enacted to secure and defend these interests.
The Neoliberal Turn in Panama and Rising Inequities
While Panama’s strategic geopolitical location has historically made it desirable to global powers, it has also been exploited for the benefit of Panamanian elites. Interdisciplinary scholar Jorge Cuellár asserts, “the idea that Panamanian prosperity is linked to its geographic specificity… has imbued Panamanians with a commercial nationalism, where socioeconomic stability is derived from and dependent on the nation’s activity as a global service node.” The elite ruling class has leveraged this economic ideology of “transitismo” to justify “integrating the country into neoliberal capitalism and creating a fiscal paradise for global capitalists while, in turn, abandoning responsibility for Panamanian welfare.” Cuellár highlights how the Panamanian economy has become deeply aligned with neoliberalism since the 1989 Invasion. These aligned interests and schemes of the international and national elite class are clearly evidenced by the 2016 Panama Papers leak.
As a matter of fact, researcher Carlos A. Gordón B. argues that the return of the Canal to Panama was partly driven by U.S. business interests because it actually secured the expansion of neoliberalism in the region, placing Panama in a state of external debt and “securing the dominance of international banking [such as Bank of America, Chase Manhattan Bank, and Citibank] over the Panamanian economy.” While anti-imperialist actions undoubtedly pressured the return of the Canal to Panama, we must also expose those who benefitted and continue to benefit from these arrangements within a global capitalist economy in order to demand a state that truly works for its people.
Panamanian Struggles for Sovereignty and Our Spirit of Resistance
Panamanians celebrate victory over First Quantum in 2023.
Accessible via the public domain on Wikimedia Commons.
Ultimately, the Panamanian pueblo has stood firmly against foreign intervention and the oppressive effects of neoliberalism in their country. In 2022, protests against rising gas prices and the cost of living crisis exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russo-Ukrainian War, among other factors, mobilized a broad coalition including students, teachers, Indigenous communities, and labor unions. These diverse sectors of Panamanian society were once again united in 2023 to successfully protest the extractive aims of Canadian mining corporation First Quantum. Protesters nearly shut down the entire country by closing down the major Pan-American Highway, as well as other minor roads, for over a month.
Monument commemorating the martyrs.
Accessible via the public domain on Wikimedia Commons.
Most recently in 2025, over 480 protesters were arrested during a national demonstration opposing the proposed privatization of social security, Trump’s threats to reclaim the Canal, and the U.S.-friendly attitude of current President José Raúl Mulino, among other concerns. Mulino’s U.S.-friendly attitude was gleaned from the agreement his government signed to allow Panama to serve as an “offshore” destination for nearly 300 deported migrants from countries which the United States cannot easily deport back, such as Iran and China. Another one of these agreements, discussed during Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s Central America tour, included “exploring the establishment of a [U.S.] military airstrip in the Darién to ‘improve’ its massive deportation project. This, in effect, would serve as a U.S. military base.” These possible agreements would reassert U.S. influence in Panama, threaten Panamanian sovereignty, and continue to gravely violate the rights of migrants who are illegally being trafficked to countries with which they have no connection.
This moment calls for remembering and re-committing ourselves to the anti-imperialist struggle that fought for Panamanian sovereignty from the United States in 1964. The martyrs’ brave act of flying the Panamanian flag within the U.S.-occupied Panama Canal Zone continues to serve as a powerful symbol of our spirit of resistance and highlights the fact that we, Panamanians – both in the diaspora and in Panama – get to shape and demand our vision of a country that will serve the majority, not just a few international and national elites. This sentiment can be felt in Panamanian composer Luis Bejarano’s powerful anthem, which turned into a famous protest slogan:
Colonia Americana… ¡No!
Es nuestro el Canal
no somos, ni seremos
de ninguna otra Nación.
American colony… No!
The Canal is ours
We are not, nor will we be
Of any other Nation.
Alejandra Mejía is the Chief Editor of Migrant Roots Media. She is also an Assistant Editor at Duke University Press, where she acquires books in Latinx history. Her politics and devotion to migrant justice are largely informed by her lived experiences as a working-class Central American immigrant in the United States.
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