President Donald Trump has reportedly ordered the U.S. military to come up with a variety of options for retaking the Panama Canal as he seeks to push communist China from operating around the canal.
NBC News reported that United States Southern Command is spearheading the effort, which includes everything from partnering with Panamanian security forces to the United States military retaking the canal by force.
Officials said that whether the United States military is used depends solely on whether Panama complies with U.S. demands.
Adm. Alvin Holsey, commander of United States Southern Command, “presented draft strategies to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth this week,” the report said.
Officials said that the United States taking over Panama was not out of the question, but would likely only happen if an increased U.S. military presence in Panama did not achieve Trump’s goal of taking back the canal that the United States paid for and built.
Trump said that the United States would be “reclaiming” the canal and efforts are already underway to do so with the goal being to “further enhance our national security.”
“It was given away by the Carter administration for $1, but that agreement has been violated very severely,” Trump said during his address to Congress last week. “We didn’t give it to China. We gave it to Panama, and we’re taking it back.”
The report said:
Privately, Trump has told his advisers that he sees a U.S. military presence in Panama and on the canal itself as critical to that effort, the U.S. officials said. Trump has also made it clear that he wants U.S. service members to be visible in the canal zone as a show of force.
Trump administration officials have argued that China has too large a presence near the canal. In the event of a conflict, they say, Beijing could shut down the canal to American shipping, including military ships.
Gen. Laura Richardson, then the commander of United States Southern Command, told the House Armed Services Committee last year that China is “playing the long game” with its economic development projects around the world, which it uses to advance its military interests.
“The PRC [People’s Republic of China] messages its investments as peaceful, but in fact, many serve as points of future multi-domain access for the PLA [People’s Liberation Army] and strategic naval chokepoints,” she said. “In Panama, PRC-controlled State-Owned Enterprises, SOEs, continue to bid on projects related to the Panama Canal — a global strategic chokepoint.”