‘Pro mundi beneficio’? The Panama Canal as an international issue, 1943–8

Abstract

From its inception Americans have thought of the Panama Canal as one of the outstanding national interests of the United States, and a glance at the map explains why. By cutting out the long haul round South America, the canal markedly reduces the distance by sea from coast to coast, from the Atlantic ports to East Asia and Australasia, and from the Pacific ports to Europe and the Atlantic seaboards of Africa and Latin America. The result has been an immense enhancement of American naval strength and mercantile potential. But the canal also possesses great international significance, as the map again shows. It provides quicker access to the Pacific as far west as New Zealand for traffic from Europe and from most Atlantic ports outside the United States, and it puts the western coast of South America within correspondingly easier reach of the Atlantic littoral. Like the Suez Canal, it has become a focal point of global strategy and commerce, a thoroughfare between the oceans of enormous value to the world at large.