{"id":527166,"date":"2026-03-16T16:52:04","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T16:52:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/527166\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T16:52:04","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T16:52:04","slug":"remembering-the-1978-debate-over-the-panama-canal-treaties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/527166\/","title":{"rendered":"Remembering the\u00a01978\u00a0Debate Over\u00a0the\u00a0Panama Canal Treaties"},"content":{"rendered":"

In an address to a joint session of Congress<\/a> last March, President Donald Trump announced that \u201cmy administration will be reclaiming the Panama Canal.\u201d While Trump has done little over the past year to make good on that pledge, his remarks reflect the fact that the United States agreed in two treaties ratified in 1978 to cede control of the canal it built to Panama. On March 16, 1978, the U.S. Senate approved the resolution of ratification for the Treaty Concerning the Permanent Neutrality and Operation of the Panama Canal<\/a>. A month later, it approved the Panama Canal Treaty<\/a>. Both votes were unpopular at the time with many Americans, and the treaties passed only after considerable political wrangling. But the decision to hand over control of the canal resolved a long-standing and growing irritant in U.S. relations with Latin America that was only likely to worsen with time. For that reason, a survey CFR conducted<\/a> of members of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations ranked the handover of the Panama Canal as the twenty-ninth best decision in the history of U.S. foreign policy<\/a>.\u202f\u202f <\/p>\n

A Source of Controversy <\/p>\n

The Panama Canal Zone, which cut a ten-mile-wide path across the middle of Panama,\u202fwas a source of controversy in Latin America\u202ffrom its creation. Theodore Roosevelt had initially negotiated a treaty with Colombia to build a canal across the Panamanian isthmus, which was then part of Colombia. The treaty heavily favored the United States, however, and the Colombian Senate rejected it. Roosevelt decided that there was more than one way to skin a cat. He encouraged Panamanian separatists to revolt. The rebels succeeded, in part because the U.S. Navy prevented Colombian troops from landing in Panama to put down the uprising. Roosevelt then struck a deal with the new government to build a canal. <\/p>\n

\"\"Excavation and removal of dirt at the Culebra Cut of the Panama Canal, April 8, 1907.Library of Congress.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Panama Canal was a point of\u00a0great pride\u00a0for the United States, but trouble was brewing. In 1964, anti-American riots in Panama\u00a0left three Americans and\u00a0twenty-three Panamanians\u00a0dead.\u00a0The violence\u00a0was triggered\u00a0by reports that U.S. high school students in the Canal Zone had desecrated a Panamanian flag. But the deeper issue was that many Panamanians saw U.S. control of the canal as an affront to Panamanian sovereignty\u2014\u201ca foreign flag piercing its own heart<\/a>,\u201d as a later Panamanian leader, General Omar Torrijos, would put it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Negotiating a New Deal <\/p>\n

The Johnson administration and then the Nixon administration talked with Panama about writing a new treaty. But those\u202fnegotiations had failed to produce an agreement by the time\u202fPresident Jimmy Carter\u202fcame to office in 1977. So, it fell to Carter to strike a final deal. Although he had argued earlier in his career against ceding control of the canal to Panama, he had since changed his mind. He no longer saw the canal as vital to U.S. strategic and trade interests. He worried instead that a failure to reach an agreement with Panama would jeopardize U.S. relations across Latin America. <\/p>\n

Carter moved quickly. In August 1977,\u202fU.S. and Panamanian negotiators announced an agreement. The deal consisted of two treaties. One, the Panama Canal Treaty, terminated the original 1903 treaty and established a process for handing control over the canal to Panama by December 31, 1999. The other treaty, usually referred to as the \u201cNeutrality Treaty,\u201d gave the United States a right in perpetuity to protect the canal\u2019s \u201cneutrality\u201d to ensure that any and all countries could use it. <\/p>\n

Backlash at Home <\/p>\n

Leaders across Latin America praised the deal for resolving a budding crisis in the region. Unfortunately for Carter, the Senate and not Latin American leaders would decide whether the treaties would be implemented. And senators would face intense pressure from the pro-canal lobby in the United States to kill the treaties. Coming as they did just two years after the ignominious U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam, critics accused Carter of appeasement and leading America\u2019s \u201cretreat\u201d from the world. <\/p>\n

A\u00a0prominent\u00a0voice for the anti-treaty forces was Republican presidential hopeful Ronald Reagan. For the Gipper,\u00a0the Canal Zone was<\/a>\u00a0\u201csovereign United States territory just the same as Alaska. . . and the states that were carved out of the Louisiana Purchase.\u201d Or as\u00a0he liked to say<\/a>\u00a0in a line that\u00a0brought his conservative audiences\u00a0to\u00a0their\u00a0feet: \u201cWe bought it, we paid for it, it\u2019s ours, and we\u2019re going to keep it.\u201d\u00a0Reagan\u2019s fellow California Republican, Sen.\u202fS. I. Hayakawa, had a slightly different take\u2014America had a right to the canal because \u201cwe stole it fair and square<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

As a matter of law and history, Reagan and Hayakawa had it wrong. The Canal Zone was not sovereign U.S. territory, whether taken fairly or unfairly. As Ellsworth Bunker, the distinguished U.S. diplomat who helped to negotiate the treaty,\u202fargued<\/a>: <\/p>\n

We bought Louisiana; we bought Alaska. In Panama, we bought not territory, but rights . . . . It is clear that under law we do not have sovereignty in Panama.<\/p>\n

Whatever the facts, most Americans sided with Reagan and Hayakawa. A poll taken in September 1977 found that just 23 percent of Americans supported the treaties, while 50 percent opposed them. The breadth and depth of opposition to the treaties unnerved some senators, perhaps none more so than\u202fEdward Zorinsky\u202f(D-Neb.) He told Carter that while he was personally inclined to support the treaties, most of his fellow Nebraskans were not. Caught between his own policy preferences and those of his constituents, he announced that he would vote for the treaties if the administration could persuade Nebraskans that it was the right thing to do. <\/p>\n

\"\"Protests in Washington, DC, against the Panama Canal Treaties, September 7, 1977.Library of Congress U.S. News & World Report Magazine Photograph Collection.<\/p>\n

Building Public Support <\/p>\n

Worried about where public opinion would lead Senator Zorinksy and others, Carter set out to make a public case for the two treaties. He gave a national address<\/a> defending them. The Committee of Americans for the Canal Treaties, composed of Cold War luminaries, influential labor leaders, and other opinion shapers, was formed to push for Senate passage. Major corporations that worried about what would happen to their investments in Latin America if the treaties didn\u2019t pass, as well as liberal religious groups seeking to wipe away the stain of \u201ccolonialism,\u201d also joined the fray. <\/p>\n

\"\"Carter administration officials testify before the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee on the Panama Canal Treaties, September 27, 1977.Library of Congress.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Carter also got a surprising boost from an unlikely source in Hollywood, Marion Robert Morrison. Better known to the world as\u202fJohn Wayne\u2014yes, that John Wayne, the star of\u202fStagecoach,\u202fThe Searchers,\u202fThe Green Berets, and\u202fTrue Grit,\u202famong other classic films\u2014he had become friends with the Panamanian leader, General Torrijos. And Wayne did not take kindly to Reagan criticizing his friend. He\u202fpublicly challenged the Gipper<\/a>\u202f\u201cpoint by God damn point in the Treaty where you are misinforming people.\u201d <\/p>\n

Carter\u2019s team at times took a page out of the John Wayne macho handbook in defending the treaties. When Carter\u2019s national security adviser\u202fZbigniew Brzezinski\u202fwas asked how the United States would respond if Panama closed the canal on the pretext of conducting repairs, his response was blunt<\/a>: \u201cAccording to the provisions of the Neutrality Treaty, we will move in and close down the Panamanian government for repairs.\u201d (Brzezinski\u2019s swagger was poorly received in Panama City.) <\/p>\n

The Senate Debates <\/p>\n

The\u00a0Senate\u00a0took up the canal treaties\u00a0in March 1978.\u00a0Unlike Woodrow Wilson\u00a0six decades earlier with\u00a0the Treaty of Versailles<\/a>,\u00a0Carter was willing to let senators\u00a0revise his handiwork\u2014and even conduct their own negotiations\u00a0with Panama\u2019s leader.\u00a0As the historian\u202fGeorge Herring\u00a0tells the story<\/a>:\u00a0<\/p>\n

The\u202fkey to the administration\u2019s eventual narrow victory was\u202fthe passage of two amendments [to the Neutrality Treaty] carefully crafted and shepherded through the upper house by Democrat Robert Byrd of West Virginia and Republican Howard Baker of Tennessee. The first gave the United States explicit rights after the year 2000 to intervene militarily to keep the canal open and for U.S. ships to move to the head of the line in times of crisis. Originally a memorandum of understanding, this amendment was formally incorporated into the treaty after quite extraordinary negotiations between Senator Baker and Torrijos.<\/p>\n

On March 16, 1978, the Senate voted 68 to 32 to approve the Neutrality Treaty, just one vote more than the two-thirds majority needed. (Polls showed that Nebraskans opposed the treaty. Senator Zorinsky kept his word and voted no.) Along the way, the Senate rejected seventy-seven amendments, most of which were designed to make the treaty unacceptable to Panama. A month later, the Senate passed the Panama Canal Treaty. <\/p>\n

\"\"First page of the Senate resolution of ratification for the Panama Canal Treaty, April 18, 1978.National Archives.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for\u00a0Carter, his political problems\u00a0did not end with the\u00a0Senate\u2019s consent to the two resolutions\u00a0of ratification.\u00a0He also had to persuade\u00a0Congress\u00a0to\u00a0appropriate funds\u00a0to\u00a0implement the\u00a0treaties.\u00a0This gave members of the House\u00a0of Representatives\u00a0an opportunity to vent their spleen over the fact that the Constitution\u00a0excludes them from\u00a0treaty-making. Rep.\u202fJohn Dingell\u202f(D-Mich.)\u00a0berated the\u00a0Carter administration officials sent to Capitol Hill to\u202fdefend the\u00a0funding\u00a0request<\/a>:\u00a0<\/p>\n

We in the House are tired of you people in the State Department going to your tea-sipping friends in the Senate. Now you good folks come up here and say you need legislation [to implement the treaties] after you ignored the House. If you expect me to vote for this travesty, you\u2019re sorely in error.<\/p>\n

When the conference committee set up to reconcile differences between the House and Senate versions of the implementing legislation issued its first report on the bill, the House rejected it. The House reversed itself only after Carter launched an intensive lobbying effort that involved former secretary of state Henry Kissinger and other Republican notables. <\/p>\n

Lessons Learned <\/p>\n

The battle over the Panama Canal treaties illustrates three lessons about the politics of U.S. foreign policy. One is that while presidents are often tempted to cut members of Congress out of foreign policy decision-making, their success often depends on involving them. Carter\u2019s decision to work with senators, and particularly with Senator Baker, was critical to Senate approval of both treaties. <\/p>\n

A\u00a0second lesson\u00a0is that presidents\u00a0sometimes win\u00a0over the\u00a0Senate\u00a0even when they\u00a0fail to\u00a0win over the American public. Polls\u00a0conducted\u00a0in the spring of 1978\u00a0showed\u00a0that\u00a0Carter\u2019s public\u00a0relations effort\u00a0had not moved public opinion<\/a>.\u00a0A majority of\u00a0Americans continued to oppose the treaties.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A third lesson is that prevailing legislatively does not mean that a president necessarily prevails politically. Carter later lamented<\/a> that \u201csome fine members of Congress had to pay with their political careers for their votes\u201d on the canal treaties. But in many ways, he did as well. He was right to cede control of the Panama Canal. Had the United States insisted on retaining control, the issue would have become a festering sore in U.S. relations with Latin America. Instead, with the ratification of the two treaties, the canal disappeared as an issue in U.S. politics for more than four decades. Nonetheless, Carter reaped few political benefits from his victory. Indeed, it likely hardened the determination of his opponents to make him a one-term president.<\/p>\n

The United States celebrates its 250th\u202fanniversary in 2026. To mark that milestone, I am resurfacing essays I have written over the years about major events in U.S. foreign policy. A version of this essay was\u202fpublished on March\u00a016, 2011<\/a>.\u202f\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n

Oscar Berry assisted in the preparation of this article. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In an address to a joint session of Congress last March, President Donald Trump announced that \u201cmy administration…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":527167,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-527166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=527166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/527167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}