Title: Trump and the Panama Canal [MUSIC]

Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. It's hard to know where to look first right now after two days of the new Trump administration. You've just been hearing on the BBC about the pause in refugee resettlement programs. A new policy announced on Monday reopened so called sensitive spaces to immigration raids.

As CBS News describes that the policy signed by former Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas instructed Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection during the Biden administration to refrain from apprehending unauthorized immigrants at or near locations, "That would restrain people's access to essential services or engagement in essential activities." CBS says those locations included schools, places of worship, hospitals and other health care facilities, shelters, relief centers and public demonstrations like rallies and protests. Undocumented immigrants cannot take sanctuary in a sanctuary anymore. We take that away from that.

The head of the Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio, now pardoned from his 22-year sentence for seditious conspiracy that's conspiring to overthrow the United States government as an organizer of the January 6 riots. Tarrio went on the Alex Jones Infowars podcast yesterday and called on Trump's nominees for FBI director and Attorney General to prosecute those who prosecuted him.

Just for the record, the Anti-Defamation League calls the Proud Boys a right-wing extremist group with a history of using violence, targeted harassment and intimidation to achieve their political goals and combat perceived enemies. It says the group serves as a tent for misogynistic, anti-immigrant, Islamophobic and anti-LGBTQ+ ideologies and other forms of hate, including antisemitism and white supremacy.

Tarrio said on Alex Jones that the people who did this, they need to feel the heat. This is the quote. "They need to be put behind bars." Enrique Tarrio on Alex Jones's Show. Mayor Eric Adams went on Tucker Carlson Show. The New York Times reminds us this morning that in 2021, Adams described Tucker Carlson as someone who, "perpetuates racist, anti-immigrant propaganda." We'll talk about the mayor on Tucker Carlson later in the show with our lead Eric Adams reporter Liz Kim.

Also, last night, President Trump ordered all federal employees put on paid leave if their jobs mostly involve diversity, equity and inclusion programs. The plan to roll back diversity and inclusion programs also extends to renaming and reclaiming things. Trump said in his inaugural address that he wants to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. Trump said in his inaugural address that the mountain in Alaska known by the Native American name Denali will revert to being called Mount McKinley.

Morning Edition noted this morning that President William McKinley never visited that mountain. The National Park Service website says the name Mount McKinley emerged after a gold prospector named William Dickey, who was an admirer of President elect McKinley, used the name in an 1897 New York Sun article, that from the National Park Service website. So from that New York Sun article, the name Mount McKinley stuck.

Trump identifies with McKinley. In Monday's inaugural address, Trump described McKinley as a "natural businessman," as someone who "made our country very rich through tariffs" and who "gave Teddy Roosevelt the money for many of the great things he did, including the Panama Canal." Which brings us to our first conversation topic today. What's this about taking back the Panama Canal? Is the president planning to go to war in our hemisphere? In the inaugural address, he said flat out, "We're taking the Panama Canal back."

President Trump: American ships are being severely overcharged and not treated fairly in any way, shape or form, and that includes the United States Navy. Above all, China is operating the Panama Canal, and we didn't give it to China. We gave it to Panama, and we're taking it back.

[applause]

Brian Lehrer: President Trump from the inaugural address, and with us now is some history of the Panama Canal and implications of the US Desire to take it back are two guests, Jason Marczak, vice president and senior director of the Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center at the think tank the Atlantic Council. The Council describes itself as a nonpartisan organization that galvanizes US leadership and engagement in the world in partnership with allies and partners to shape solutions to global challenges.

Jason Marczak is also an adjunct professor at George Washington University, where he teaches on Central America and immigration policy, so I'll touch on that. He has an Atlanta Council article called What to know about Trump’s day-one promise to take back the Panama Canal. Jason Marczak and Peter Bergen, CNN national security analyst, vice president for Global Studies and Fellows at the New America think tank, and author of books including The Cost of Chaos: The Trump Administration and the World, published in 2022. He has a CNN analysis called Trump's ambition to retake the Panama Canal could have a heavy cost. Jason, welcome. Peter, welcome back to WNYC.

Peter Bergen: Thank you, Brian.

Jason Marczak: Thank you very much, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: How did the United States first acquire the Panama Canal, Jason, if acquire is the right word?

Jason Marczak: Brian, it goes back to actually Panamanian independence, which Panama received in 1903. At the time, the United States was pushing for the construction of a canal in Panama, Panama that was part of greater Colombia. There was not a desire for the US to move forward. Panama was seeking its independence from Colombia. The US supported Panama's independence. Frankly, back then, President Teddy Roosevelt actually sent gunships both to Panama's Atlantic and Pacific coasts to support the Panamanian call for independence.

That US support for Panamanian independence then resulted in the Panamanians granting the US through a treaty at that time, back in 1903, open ended use of the future canal. That was critical for US Support of Panama in its independence and then reciprocating that support and ensuring the continuation of US support for Panama's independence military support, the two countries signed a treaty in 1903 that gave the US control over what was a 50 mile long and actually 10-mile-wide strip of land to build the canal. That became known as the Canal Zone that the US had control of for the 20th century.

Brian Lehrer: Peter, anything to add to that basic origin story before we move on?

Peter Bergen: I don't think so.

Brian Lehrer: Did President William McKinley, Jason, play a role in that? Anything you were just describing as the Trump inaugural address line I quoted about McKinley suggest?

Jason Marczak: Well, I mean, I think the fate of President McKinley, especially given the assassination attempts on President Trump, I think has helped to solidify Trump's fascination and his affinity with President McKinley. There was a previous French attempt to build the canal back in the late 19th century, and that attempt, it was a complete failure. Workers died from a whole host of diseases.

You have to remember that the canal is in the middle of tropical rainforests. I've been to the canal a couple of times and always make sure to put on a lot of mosquito repellent whenever near the canal. Malaria, other diseases were pretty rife in the Canal Zone. That led to the challenges with the French attempt. Then President McKinley first had this idea of what could be the US role in helping to secure a zone that could allow for US ships, given the growth in commerce, especially shipping commerce around that time, to avoid having to go all the way down South America and really be able to cut across the land swath. It was seen as really a commercial and a military option for the United States where the idea of it first got further traction during the McKinley presidency.

Brian Lehrer: Was there colonialist or imperialist or expansionist aspect to the US involvement in the creation of the canal? You described it, I think, in more benign terms than that, as the US trying to help Panama attain its independence. We sometimes think about that period, at least the Spanish American War in 1898, as the United States a rare US colonialist war for territory.

Jason Marczak: I think that's exactly it, Brian. It was the US helping Panama achieve its independence because without an independent Panama, the US would not have had the option to be able to build a canal. Panamanian independence was the US ticket to be able to have that swath of land in US control, and as you say, expand in a limited fashion US territory and do so in a way that fundamentally secured that waterway as within US Dominance.

Brian Lehrer: Trump also said in Monday's speech that the US spent more money than ever spent before on a project and lost 38,000 lives in the building of the canal. Did the US build the canal or dig the canal or tell me what the right term would be?

Jason Marczak: I've been trying to look at where the number 38,000 comes from. There were tens of thousands who lost their lives. Actually, as I described before, the French attempt to build a canal that ended up being a disaster. The US attempt, it was, I think somewhere around 5,000 lives. A lot of the lives that were lost were actually workers that the US brought in from the Caribbean to help to build the canal rather than American citizens that had come down to Panama to help to construct it.

Brian Lehrer: Peter, we'll bring you in in a minute on your article about the potential heavy costs of taking back the Panama Canal, but continuing a little bit with the history, what led, Jason, to the treaties under President Carter in the 1970s that returned the canal to Panama?

Jason Marczak: Well, what happened, Brian, was that following Panama's independence, there was great receptivity to the US helping Panama to gain its independence. That quickly turned into backlash against the fact that basically the US controlled this 10-mile-wide strip of land that essentially divided their country in half. The Canal Zone as well was an area where there were beautiful golf courses, all the commercial goods that you could hope for. A very different lifestyle was being led by the Americans within the Canal Zone versus what you saw in the rest of Panama.

Over time, the discontent among the Panamanian people increased significantly about the fact that the US controlled the swath of territory. In the mid-1960s, riots broke out after demonstrators entered the off-limits Canal Zone. Demonstrators at that time tried to raise as well the Panamanian flag. There were about two dozen Panamanian students and actually a few US marines that actually died in that fighting in the mid-1960s, and that fight again reflected over time, Panamanians thought that they really got a bad deal with this initial treaty back in 1903.

Especially after that, there were a number of conversations over the years to discuss how to return the Panama Canal to Panama. That happened across both administrations. Then it was 1977 when Jimmy Carter reached an agreement with the Panamanians to jointly administer the waterway up until 1999 when it would be fully turned over back to the Panamanians, but with a number of stipulations in that, in that the Panamanians could never grant favorable access to one country over another. There had to be fair and transparent prices for shipping. A number of stipulations that were put into that agreement.

Jimmy Carter did that back in the late 1970s because that was part of his whole attempt to be able to usher in a new era of stronger relations with our neighbors across the region and the Canal Zone and the US Control of that had long been an issue that had prevented a stronger relationship not just with Panama, but it also generated tensions with countries across the region.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we invite your questions or comments about President Trump and the US and the Panama Canal. Ask a history question or listeners with ties to Panama or to the shipping business or the Navy, which apparently also uses the canal, passes through the canal, or have any experience with the Canal Zone. We invite your Questions or comments. 212-433-WNYC 212-433-9692. Call or text for our guests, Jason Marczak from the Atlantic Council and Peter Bergen from CNN. Roland in Tampa is calling in. Roland, you're on WNYC. Hello. This is about the line in the Trump speech that 38,000 Americans died building the canal?

Roland: Yes. You covered that point about who built the canal. The French had failed miserably in trying to build a canal and a railroad across the isthmus. If you look at a map of the world, the Panama Canal, the Suez Canal are necessary bodies of engineering marvels because without those, shipping is incredibly expensive. Part of my family comes from the Bahamas. When President Trump talked about 38,000 people dying in the construction of canal, that's just not true. They were not Americans.

The canal was built by black people, mostly from Jamaica, from the Bahamas, from the US Virgin Islands. They couldn't get white workers to go down there. The climate was horrible. We know that Walter Reed research helped us solve a lot of tropical medical issues as a result of the US involvement. There was an anti-colonial movement going on in the Central America during the time when President Carter was president. America could no more take back the Panama Canal than England could take back the Suez.

Brian Lehrer: Roland, thank you very much. We'll get to what the US can do or what Trump might really have in mind here, but interesting, Peter, or, Jason, if either of you want to weigh in on this. He mentioned Walter Reed and we have a text that says, "Key to the US building, the Panama Canal was Dr. Walter Reed's work on yellow fever. He showed that the virus was mosquito borne and mosquito eradication and eventually a vaccine was developed." Either of you have anything on that? That's an interesting maybe side note to the main political story that we're talking about today.

Peter Bergen: Not really. I'm sitting not far from Walter Reed and I mean I think that's factually true. The old Walter Reed which is now being converted into apartments and--

Brian Lehrer: You mean the army hospital Walter Reed.

Peter Bergen: Yes. Yes, exactly. One point to think about if France suddenly said, "Well, that Louisiana Purchase was a bad deal for us." Almost a million square miles of territory that the United States bought from Napoleon in 1803 and we want it back. I mean the whole concept here I think is very strange because as Jason sort of alluded to, it wasn't just Carter who signed the treaty. Nixon and Ford had also said, "Well this is going to be problematic if we get into a war over this canal."

Then a succession of presidents after Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton all kind of said they would implement the agreement, and they did. The mechanisms by which-- and also by the way when you have a 68 to 32 vote in the US Senate, it's very hard to imagine that kind of vote from for most measures today. This is enshrined by treaty. It's not something you can just sort of rip up and say that you don't like it.

Trump has also hinted that he has wouldn't rule out military force. One of the reasons that Jimmy Carter-- the US Military was encouraging Carter to do this deal because they didn't want to get involved in another war potentially over the canal. If you do some back of the envelope calculation, population of Panama is 4.5 million. US Military doctrine usually suggests one counterinsurgent to every 20-person popular population. If you were serious about taking the canal militarily because presumably you would face a domestic insurgency, it might take up to 90,000 American troops, if you follow US army doctrine.

There seems to be no universe in which the treaty could somehow be reversed. There also seems to be no universe in which military force would really work or be desirable. It also would go against one of the themes of President Trump's inauguration speech, which is he's a great peacemaker. Going to a war over the canal seems unlikely.

Brian Lehrer: Well, in terms of whether the treaty should still apply, in Trump's view, the line in the clip was China is operating the Panama Canal, and we didn't give it to China, we gave it to Panama. Jason, you do note in your article that back in 1997, a Hong Kong based consortium won a bidding process to operate ports at each end of the canal. Is Trump right when he says China is operating the canal?

Jason Marczak: China's not operating the canal? China has a port at either end of the canal, which has generated concern for US officials beyond President Trump. We had here at the Atlantic Council last year, then commander of US Southern Command, General Laura Richardson, who expressed again her concern about these Chinese operated ports at either end of the canal that could be at some point potentially converted for military purposes. There has been long standing concern in the US Defense establishment about these two Chinese ports, but the canal itself is operated by the Panama Canal Authority.

This is an autonomous entity of the Panamanian government that is in charge of upkeep, modernization, setting transparent and fair fees for vessels. The Panama Canal Authority has been overseeing the waterway fully since 1999, when Panama gained the full control of the canal. I'll also note that the Panama Canal Authority, and Panama in particular, has also invested significant funds in the last 25 years in upgrading the canal.

In 2007, Panama began work on an expansion. It actually put new locks in and devoted about $5 billion into upgrading of the canal. That upgrade went into operation in 2016. In addition to the fact that the canal by treaty is overseen by the Panamanians, the Panamanians, since it's been fully given back, have also dedicated significant state resources into the modernization, especially so that it could keep up with some of the larger vessels that are increasingly dominating shipping globally.

Brian Lehrer: Here's another caller, Annette in Loyalton, Queens. Annette, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Annette: Oh, yes, good morning, Brian. My husband, he passed away in 1922.

Brian Lehrer: 2022?

Annette: 2022, yes. We were married for 60 years. That's right. He migrated from Panama to the United States and his stories, of course, you're going to hear it from the people who live there. He used to tell me that when the canal-- his grandparents moved from Jamaica to Panama and they were very much involved in building, helped to build that canal. At the same time, according to him, he said they were paying those who were helping to build the canal in silver and the Americans in gold. The currency was different.

Also on the Canal Zone, the people from the United States, they lived in that area and they practiced the same thing as Jim Crow. You couldn't go on that area unless you were working. The same kind of system that was practiced in America. Also, remember, Panama was already invaded by the United States under Bush when he went there to get Noriega. Over 2000 innocent people were killed.

It's always been that aggression and the story is never told as if what Trump said is a lie. Americans did not build that canal. It was people from Jamaica and other West Indian countries and how they were paid and how the aggression of the United States living in Panama practicing Jim Crow. There's always been that bitterness and untold stories. You have to get the indigenous people from Panama to really give you the history of exactly what goes on when you have the United States involved in land grab. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you for your call, Annette. You know, Annette, I know you've been a caller to the show for a number of years, so let me just say I'm sorry for the relatively recent loss of your husband, who you now have told us came originally from Panama. Jason, your article notes that as far back as 2003, when Trump visited Panama as part of the Miss Universe contest that he owned at the time, in 2003 Trump reportedly was saying the US got ripped off by the Panama Canal treaties. Do you have any of those specific references or the origin of this as a point of grievance for Donald Trump?

Jason Marczak: President Trump, as I mentioned in the article that you referenced, Brian, he first really got to know Panama through the Miss Universe contest. That was an opportunity for him to experience Panama. He had made a lot of new connections in Panama as part of that contest as well. It was also an opportunity, I think, for him, he had made some references back in the 1980s, I think, with Tucker Carlson as well, that the US got ripped off with the canal. This is something that had been in the president's mind for some time. He then was in Panama as part of that Miss Universe contest. I think that further solidified some of his thinking about the canal.

As I referenced as well, there's also an additional source of tension between the president and Panama because in the mid-teens, there was a legal dispute between the Trump Organization and an investor that led eventually to a standoff with Panamanian authorities regarding a resolution that was passed at the Panama City Council. That led to Trump's name being taken off of one of his hotels in Panama City, which is now the JW Marriott. Some of his concerns about being probably ripped off by the canal, I think they probably metastasized back in 2018 when this legal dispute led to his name being taken off one of his signature hotels as well.

Brian Lehrer: Wow. Another intersection between Trump's business life and his political life. Well, listeners, we'll expand the conversation next from the Panama Canal per se to the possibly larger implication of the US becoming an expansionist power, something reminiscent of a Western colonialist or imperialist or even some might say, fascist era, whatever term applies that we may have thought was mostly past. Because right after Trump said, "We're taking it back," about the Panama Canal, he broadened the concept to this.

President Trump: The United States will once again consider itself a growing nation, one that increases our wealth, expands our territory, builds our cities, raises our expectations and carries our flag into new and beautiful horizons. We will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the stars and stripes on the planet Mars.

[applause]

Brian Lehrer: Manifest destiny, expanding our territory, and we'll discuss that clip when we continue in a minute.

[MUSIC]

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. We continue on the topic of President Trump's statement that China is operating the Panama Canal and not Panama and the US is taking it back. Now we expand to the larger context of Trump foreign policy, with Jason Marczak, Latin America expert at the Atlantic Council, and George Washington University, and Peter Bergen, the CNN national security analyst.

Peter, that clip from the inaugural where Trump said, 'The United States will once again consider itself a growing nation that expands our territory and carries our flag into new and beautiful horizons, and we will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars, to plant the stars and stripes on the planet Mars." How do you hear an underlying vision there for the US role in the world?

Peter Bergen: Well, it's in sharp contradiction to a lot of what his base wants, which is to pull back from the world. I mean, on the right, the Republican Party, and on the left, to the Democratic Party, there's a lot of consensus that we shouldn't be spending money overseas or going on overseas adventures. I wanted to put a bit of context on-- Trump would have been 32 when this treaty was passed by the Senate on Panama. At the time, it's hard to recall this, I don't, because I wasn't, wasn't around. At least thinking about these things, it was very unpopular. Half of Americans were opposed to this idea that the canal should be given back to the Panamanians.

An up-and-coming Republican governor called Ronald Reagan made a lot of hay out of the fact that he was completely opposed to this and it was a real cool celeb. If there's one thing that is something that is deep in Trump's psyche and has been long before he was a politician, it's the idea that other countries are ripping us off. For instance, in the 1980s, he took out full page ads in the New York Times saying that the Saudis and the Japanese owed the United States money because we were helping them in their defense. Of course, that idea of ripping us off has continued into the present day with the idea that NATO countries are ripping us off.

I would put this all in a broader continuum of the idea that countries around the world are somehow taking advantage of the United States, even if there's no evidence for the particular claims. To me, it was interesting what he didn't say in the inauguration speech, which was he didn't talk about Greenland, which has been kind of a bugbear of his for some period of time. I'm not convinced that we're going to take Cuba back and take the Philippines back and take the canal. I just don't see that. We live in a different world.

As you mentioned, Brian, which is a very good point, the fact that he's focusing on McKinley and that kind of era because McKinley was assassinated by an anarchist is interesting, but I don't think this represents-- to me, it would be unlikely that somehow we're going to now be expanding into other countries in any meaningful way when he has spent his entire campaign the first time around and also in this campaign saying we're going to get out of foreign entanglements.

Brian Lehrer: Jason, in fairness, your article does kind of provide an analysis or an opinion that Trump isn't really looking to take back the canal militarily, even though that's how some people are taking it, and maybe he meant people to take it that way, at least as a threat, when he said flat out, "We're taking it back," but that he's really got business deals in mind here. Yes?

Jason Marczak: Yes, Brian. When President Trump says, "Take back the Canal," I think it's unclear exactly what he means by take back the Canal. What is clear is that he wants more US Influence in the canal. Some have said that taking back could mean military intervention. As Peter said, I'm skeptical of that, given what Trump supporters want the US to pull back in many ways from the world stage. Also, I think President Trump himself has promised no new foreign military interventions.

At the same time, we have to take into account that the role that China, you mentioned, we talked about the ports beforehand. Panama back in 2017, as part of a wave of Central American countries that shifted their diplomatic relations from Taiwan to China, Panama also shifted its relations. The only Central American country that still has relations with Taiwan is Guatemala, and then a lot of Caribbean islands and Paraguay in South America. I think there's an inherent desire to taking back could mean also significantly increasing US presence around the canal and US business interests, US business operations in the canal. This is also something that the Panamanians want as well.

I'll be in Panama next week, I was in Panama in November, and I've heard from both the business community, government officials, and others that they want more US investment. There is a concern from the Panamanians, not just the canal, but of a significant uptick in Chinese investment across Panama and the Panamanians, especially the new president, President Mulino, who took office in July, sees his foreign policy is very much aligned with the United States, whether that's the Middle east, whether that's Ukraine, or whether it's migration.

President Mulino won office in Panama partly on a pledge to stop unauthorized migrants coming across the Darien Gap into Panama, actually signed an agreement with the US soon after taking office for deportation flights from Panama of unauthorized migrants. There's a real alignment with the Panamanians and I see the desire to take back as potentially maybe a signal to US government agencies, potentially the Development Finance Corporation and others, to be more supportive of US business, whether in the maritime sector, the tech sector, and others, to increase their investments in Panama so that we're not leaving those opportunities to the Chinese.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting. It makes me think about one of the other things Trump has been on recently, TikTok, in relation to the goal maybe really being about money. Peter, Trump Talked about the TikTok ban the other day. I wonder if you saw this. In terms of striking a deal where the US owns 50% of the platform and suggested we have them over a barrel because it's either ban TikTok out of existence in the United States or take half the profits. Did you hear that part of Monday night's executive order signing ceremony and does it fit into this picture for you in any way?

Peter Bergen: Well, I didn't, but picking up on what Jason was saying, I mean, the problem with TikTok is owned by ByteDance, which is effectively owned by the Chinese government. The issue is not who really owns it. The issue is who has the information that TikTok-- I mean, with 170 million users, Americans, you have a lot of digital information, and the issue is not so much like, "Do we split the profit in half?"

The issue really is, "Why would we allow a rival government to essentially own the information of so many Americans?" That is the heart of the issue. We'll see if this day of execution, as it were, if it'll pass. I think a lot of Republicans and Democrats are concerned about this issue. This is a bipartisan concern. It's not just members of his own party or the Democrats.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take another call. Here is Yevgenia in Montreal. Yevgeny, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Yevgeny: Hi. I just wanted to quickly say that, with Trump, it always comes down to money. I mean, we know that. With Putin, for example, we see him trying to cobble together the Soviet Union back again. That's where I'm from originally. That's where I was born. I think, in my opinion, just like Putin is trying to put together the Soviet Union again, I think that's why he took Crimea. It was for the ports, because Russia's pretty landlocked except for the north. I think that Putin and Trump are kind of using the same playbook.

Trump is probably trying to talk about taking Canada, he's trying to take Greenland, he's trying to take Panama. These are all places that are very strategic for shipping, because as the north starts to melt, there's going to be a lot more routes in that area to go to other places. Yes, I think it always comes down to money and I think he's going to try to put together this sort of Soviet Union like state, but in North America.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. It's interesting, and we've noted this on the show before, that even as Trump downplays global warming, it's that very warming that's causing so much melting of the ice in Greenland, that's making Greenland a more hospitable shipping lane. That therefore makes it more valuable to the United States. Peter, both of you have kind of dismissed the idea, reassuring some listeners, I think, that Trump actually intends any military invasion of Panama or Greenland.

As Yevgeny, coming from the Soviet Union here said, and I think to a lot of listeners, at least before this conversation hear it, it has eerie echoes of a Western colonialist past, or some would say in the harshest terms, fascist past, with enabling domestic vigilante groups like the Proud Boys at Home with his pardon of Enrique Tarrio and others, while trying to seize territory abroad. Very Mussolini, sort of, if you want to look at it that way. I wonder, Peter, how you would begin to frame the whole package.

Peter Bergen: There's a historian at Columbia called Robert Paxton who wrote a book called The Anatomy of Fascism. He's got a very interesting checklist of traits that make you a fascist leader. Unfortunately, Trump ticks a lot of those boxes. Early on, when in the first campaign, I looked at this checklist from Paxton, and the one box that Trump really didn't tick at the time was the encouragement of violence or reveling in violence. Obviously, he's called January 6th a day of love. I think anybody who's seen the video knows it wasn't a day of love.

The F word describing Trump as a fascist, it may not be a particularly useful category. He isn't Mussolini. He's something else. We will see. I share Jason's extreme skepticism that we're going to take back the canal by force. I think Jason supplied a very good, in a sense, this is an opening bid to get more American investment in the area. That seems very plausible.

I will say one thing. 12% of global trade goes through the Red Sea, back and forth through the Suez Canal. That route is now closed by the Houthis more or less completely because they're constantly attacking shipping. There may be a pause here because of the Gaza ceasefire. 6% of global trade goes through the Panama Canal. The point is, is that if you're trying to do an anti-inflationary presidency, interfering with the free global trade is a pretty good way to add to inflationary pressures. Trump has to be careful about what he does here. If he creates chaos around the Panama Canal, there's already chaos around the Red Sea. All this raises global shipping prices.

Brian Lehrer: Before we run out of time, Jason, we've been talking about the Panama Canal specifically, of course, but your focus at the Atlantic Council and as a college professor is on Latin America generally, including immigration. Do you see any relationship between Trump's agenda for the Panama Canal and centering that now publicly and all the immigration policy changes that he's also centering, or are these just separate things?

Jason Marczak: Well, I think first, Brian, you alluded to kind of beforehand labeling Trump, and I don't want to get into labeling the president. I think sticking on the canal and your question on migration, as I mentioned previously, Panama is absolutely fundamental for President Trump's desire and the desire shared, I think, across political parties to limit, reduce, stop unauthorized migrants from crossing the US border. Those migrants will generally come through the Darien Gap and into Panama. Panama is an absolutely fundamental ally in that.

As mentioned, President Mulino of Panama also won the presidency partly on a campaign pledge to stop migrants from coming through the Darien. This is in Panama's interest as well, not just in the US interest, because migration trafficking now it's a business, and it's a business run by the cartels. As part of President Trump's focus on reducing and eliminating cartels, including through the foreign terrorist designation that was announced on Monday, preventing migrants from coming north and the Panamanian assistance in that is absolutely fundamental.

How does that track back to the canal? Well, I think that, again, taking back the Canal I see as part of a negotiating tactic to allow for greater US investment, greater US business in Panama, and something that would be desired both from the US perspective as well as the Panamanians.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting. Peter, one for you before we run out of time, and I don't know if you're on this at all, this is some relatively breaking news. For you as a national security correspondent for CNN, I see that Trump removed the head of the coast guard.

Peter Bergen: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Did you see that? Do you have anything on that and where that fits into a larger Trump agenda?

Peter Bergen: I take it as the way it's been reported, which is that she was in favor of DEI initiatives and that and in their view, she was weak on border security. She is the head of a US Military service, and he's removed her. I think that the way to get people to comply is not necessary to fire a whole bunch of people. Just fire somebody relatively prominent like the woman who ran the Coast Guard and you begin to get compliance.

We've had Pete Hegseth, who's the potentially incoming secretary of defense, in his book he takes a lot of potshots at General Brown, who's the chairman of the Joint Chief. The top military advisor to the president. He portrays him as a DEI obsessed general. I don't see much evidence for that. The point is, is that I think with that firing, that is a signal that's going to be heard around the Pentagon that the commander in chief has the right to get rid of you, and in this case, Trump has exercised it. It's unusual, but it may not be the last one.

Brian Lehrer: Peter Bergen, CNN national security analyst and vice president for Global Studies and Fellows at the New America think tank, and Jason Marczak, vice president and senior director of the Latin American Center at the think tank, the Atlantic Council. Thank you both very much for joining us today.

Jason Marczak: Thank you, Brian.

Peter Bergen: Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Much more to come.

 

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