A history of the Panama Canal — and why Trump can’t take it back on his own

Associated Press

PANAMA CITY (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump is decrying rising shipping fees Panama has imposed to use the Panama Canal. He’s even threatened to have the U.S. take back control of the waterway linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans once he becomes president next month, if things don’t change. The U.S. helped engineer Panama’s independence from Colombia to build the canal, which opened in 1914. But it ceded control to Panama in 1999, and the treaties that cemented the handover contain no language about the U.S. taking it back. Trump has suggested the U.S. can do so if it’s not “treated fairly,” but Panama says it will always own the canal.