From Good Neighbor To Bad Cop – OpEd

Donald Trump’s new national security strategy placed greater emphasis on the homeland (unneeded and even ominous for the health of the U.S. republic) and the Western Hemisphere (potentially beneficial) at the expense of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Since World War II—starting with the 40-plus-year, worldwide, grandiose Cold War instituted by Harry Truman and the subsequent war on terrorism—the U.S. superpower has worried more about threats to Europe, East Asia, and the Middle East than the countries in those regions. The tragic result was unneeded wars in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and two wars with Iraq. And those are just the largest quagmires the United States got itself into during that period; countless smaller military interventions were conducted in far-flung countries. Some of these wars were the antecedents for the retaliatory 9/11 attacks that then triggered the U.S. war on terrorism. With all this attention focused elsewhere, often the important Western Hemisphere—the closest region to the otherwise relatively geographically isolated and therefore intrinsically secure United States—was usually treated as a backwater of lesser significance.

Yet in practice, the Trump administration’s higher priority for the Western Hemisphere has involved implied or overt neo-imperial coercion rather than restoring the more benign Good Neighbor Policy of the Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt administrations of the late 1920s and 1930s. That policy successfully helped most of the Western Hemisphere safeguard itself from Nazi penetration. Instead, Trump has implicitly threatened Canada; explicitly threatened to use the U.S. military against Greenland, Colombia, and Panama; and attacked Venezuela under the pretext of kidnapping its leader for alleged drug trafficking while openly admitting that it was to steal Venezuelan oil at gunpoint. 

Although the Danes and Greenlanders, who live in an autonomous region of Denmark, pushed back, apparently successfully, against Trump’s threats, Panama chose a more accommodationist strategy. Trump has threatened to take back the Panama Canal, reasoning that the U.S. originally constructed it in the very early 20th century and that China had gained too much influence there. Then, on January 30, 2021, Panamanian courts conveniently nullified the contract of a Hong Kong company, which has run two of the five main container ports on the canal since 1997, with those same contracts just renewed for 25 years without controversy as recently as 2021.

The Myth of a Chinese Threat to the Canal

The Trump administration has feared that Panama Ports Company—its subsidiary, the private Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison Holdings—would come under the influence of the Chinese government and become a threat to the canal. The Panamanian government will allow the Maersk shipping company to temporarily operate the two ports until, presumably, an American company can be allowed to win a contract to do so. 

Anti-China hawks’ accusation that China is a threat to the canal has always been vague. China’s military threat to the canal is virtually nil. It is an East Asian regional power that cannot project power very far from its soil. In contrast, the United States has global force projection capabilities, especially in nearby areas, such as Panama. In 1989, the United States invaded Panama and quickly conquered the country. Alternatively, could Chinese agents sabotage the canal by secretly mining it? Maybe, but this action would be unlikely because it would hurt Chinese commerce with the Caribbean and eastern South America, too. Besides, the U.S. Navy has the capability to clear such mines.

Anti-China hawks then quickly pivot to the vague potential for pernicious Chinese “economic penetration” or unseemly “excessive influence.” The problem with the economic argument is that using military power is usually a zero-sum game (one side wins and the other side loses), but economic interactions (trade, investment, and financial transactions) are usually win-win outcomes for everyone. That China has economic relations with countries in the Western Hemisphere should be beneficial to all, spurring U.S. companies to strengthen themselves by peacefully competing more fiercely in the global marketplace, rather than relying on the crutch of military coercion to obtain what they want unfairly. If anything, Trump’s military threats hurt U.S. competitiveness by driving countries away from commercial relations with U.S. companies for fear of falling victim to bad coercive outcomes.   

As for worries about excessive Chinese influence in the region—presumably gained through its “Belt and Road” infrastructure building in Latin American countries—many of these projects have become white elephant boondoggles, which drive up resentment in recipient countries by spiking their debt load and wasting Chinese taxpayer dollars, thus diminishing any threat from China.

The Cost of Bullying

Panama chose the accommodationist route because it has less leverage against the United States than wealthy Denmark, a NATO member that was able to marshal support from many alliance members to push back against Trump. No one should blame Panama for this apparently successful effort to keep Trump from taking over a major revenue source for its developing economy. (Now talk is afoot of Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino possibly winning a meeting with Trump.) 

In sum, whether countries push back or accommodate Trump’s bullying, U.S. commercial relations with other countries will suffer from the president’s needlessly bellicose economic (tariffs) and military policies.

• This article was published at the Independent Institute