Posted on 11/07/2005 8:25:50 PM PST by NormsRevenge
PANAMA CITY, Panama - President Bush voiced his support on Monday for expanding the Panama Canal to allow bigger ships and more cargo to pass through the shortcut between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
Bush said Panama must acknowledge that the 50-mile waterway "is to be used by everybody, that the canal is international, that there ought to be ... equal access."
Panama is studying plans for widening and deepening the canal that could cost nearly $10 billion. The project must be approved in a national referendum, amid concerns about the environmental impact and the heavy debt involved.
White House officials were careful before Bush's visit to remain neutral, saying the canal's future should be decided by Panamanian voters.
But, the president said here: "It's in our nation's interest that this canal be modernized."
It was Bush's last stop on a Latin American trip that also took him to Argentina and Brazil. He paused in Richmond, Va., on the way home to briefly campaign for Virginia GOP gubernatorial candidate Jerry Kilgore.
He returns to Washington to a troubled political landscape. White House aide Karl Rove is under a legal cloud in the CIA leak case and the president is at a low point in approval polls.
Bush briefly took charge of one of the canal's locks and pronounced it a "marvel." The United States opened the canal in 1914 and turned it over to Panama in 1999.
"Those who are responsible for the Panama Canal have done an excellent job, and this is beneficial to the world," Bush said after meeting with Panama President Martin Torrijos.
Michael Shifter, a Latin American expert at the Inter-American Dialogue research group in Washington, said Bush's stop in Panama was in part an attempt to show America's willingness to erase its image as a heavy-handed neighbor in the hemisphere.
"I think he's saying that the U.S. doesn't have to control everything — that the U.S. is able to sort of yield, and when it does, things can go well," Shifter said.
Bush, speaking in a government guest house near a presidential palace that overlooks Panama Bay, also said Panama and the U.S. were close to signing a free trade pact. But he acknowledged that the deal would likely run into resistance in Congress.
"The Democratic Party had free-trade members who are willing to make the right decisions based not on politics, but based on what's best for the interest of the country," Bush said. "That spirit has dissipated in recent votes and Panama can help reinvigorate the spirit.'
He glossed over an ongoing dispute about having a free-trade zone spanning the Western Hemisphere. At a summit in Argentina over the weekend, 34 nations failed to agree to restart talks on the U.S.-backed Free Trade Area of the Americas. Bush stressed that 29 nations said "loud and clear" that it's important to advance a trade agenda.
Torrijos brought up one tricky subject — Panama's contention that the U.S. government, which built military bases in the Canal Zone to serve regional strategic military purposes, left behind unexploded ordnance.
"There will not always be agreement, such as in the unexploded ordnance issue," Torrijos said. "But there will always be a frankness, sincerity between us so that we can discuss as friends on the various viewpoints of our countries."
Bush's visit to Panama was in stark contrast to his father's visit here in 1992.
Former President George H.W. Bush was forced to flee to safety from tear gas fired at protesters at a rally in downtown Panama City where he was preparing to deliver a speech praising the revival of democracy in Panama. When a dark cloud of tear gas blew in, Secret Service agents led him away.
The incident followed a night of anti-American protests over the death and destruction that occurred during the December 1989 U.S. invasion to oust military strongman Manuel Noriega.
Besides touring the canal, Bush tossed a baseball with Panamanian baseball players and visited the Corozal American Cemetery to honor nearly 5,200 canal workers and U.S. service members buried there. He also he set up a fishing date with Torrijos.
At the canal, the president rolled up his sleeves to operate the Miraflores Locks. He turned a lever, sending an electronic signal to a motor that opens a value to let water flow into the lock.
It took about eight minutes for the chamber to fill and allow a ship from Malta to ascend to the next level of the canal. The ship, which paid $40,000 to pass through, was carrying 13,700 tons of wood and wood products from Chile to Mexico.
I agree. A little longer, but flatter so no locks.
Who's running Nicaragua now?
“I agree. A little longer, but flatter so no locks.”
Wrong. The reason for the locks is because the Atlantic side has about 3-foot tide, and the Pacific side has about a 15-foot tide.
Uh, we bought the land, and paid to have it built.
How is that "communist?"
People think we went in there with guns blazing, and built this thing in opposition to everyone. That simply isn't the case.
Thank you.
Yeah my Grandfather was with the A.C.E. that helped build it. It makes me sick knowing that he spent years of his life helping to build it and now it is not in American hands anymore. 8( **sigh** carter is a piece of crap.
Never mind, he's rolling...
How many billions of our money are you willing to throw at this boondoggle, Mr. Pres.?
Please don't take any more foreign trips. You're wasting more than enough money at home.
I don't disagree that Carter picked a despicable regime to surrender the land to, since we had an indefinate lease. However, the only way we could maintain indefinate control was to be an imperialist nation, and while we enjoy our FEDERALISM, which is a sort of empire, we are only better than the old English, and the current french, because we have dignity. Let the Panamanians Have it, but if it needs to be fixed? and they need to turn to the US? Then we should LEASE it for next to nothing, so that we can control the income. And we will return it when we have made a proffit.
I wasn't saying that the US was wrong in building it. and I don't think we were wrong in turning it over, other than the situation. Put Panama in graffiti or hier a PR firm to make a logo that is pasted on every locke wall, but the world knows, it was the US that built the Canal, and it is the US that will keep it open and safe at all times.
In the Mid 80's, my brothers best friend was one of them, the canal needed REAL protection so they hiered, as the libs call them, Mercenaries, to look out for the defense of the canal, MILES away from the canal.
The US built it, and in fact, the US IS the western Hemisphere, no matter what Canada thinks.
Totaly wordy, and totaly nationalistic, but I don't think this statement is wrong.
A wider one would be nice. Right now our carriers scrape the sides trying to get through.
And then Reagan did nothing during his 8 years in office to modify or retract the Canal treaty. Why not, if it was so bad? If turning the canal back over to Panama was so bad then why blame it all on Carter when 9 years of Republican presidents did nothing to halt it.
It's not our problem anymore. Not a nickle unless we are first given a deed and absolute soverenty over the whole damn thing.
Right now our carriers would have to scrape off about 12 feet on either side to fit through, not to mention about 30 feet off the bow and stern. We haven't built one that would fit in the canal since World War II.
Isn't that usually spelled with a "H"?
That would be the state of Washington.
That's OK, Bush will give it to 'em.
Have you read "The Path Between the Seas" by David McCullough?
Even though I lived in Panama for 4 years, it brought forward stuff I never knew. I highly recommend it.
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