Renaming the Gulf of Mexico, threatening Panama is not why Donald Trump was elected
 Plainly jingoistic statements from US President Donald Trump about re-naming the Gulf of Mexico, the American takeover of Greenland, Canada and the Panama Canal took many of his friends and supporters by surprise.
None of these bizarre ambitions had anything to do with why he had been elected, namely to decimate the civil service, end the Russo-Ukraine War, and free Americans from multi-national obligations, secure the southern Mexican border and deport illegal immigrants en masse. That's what was wanted.
But forgetting his planned take-over of the Panama Canal for the moment, perhaps it is best to review his other schemes, only one which have seems to have any merit.
Why he felt it necessary to burden every schoolboy worldwide with the need to remember that the Gulf of Mexico was the Gulf of America is a mystery, when it has been called by its old name since 1580.
To be fair, there is nothing silly about his proposal to purchase Greenland, nominally a Danish possession. First, such a takeover is not unprecedented as the US purchased the Caribbean Virgin Islands from Denmark in 1917. What's more the US has had military bases in Greenland since World War II.
With Greenland's 45,000 citizens on the cusp of full independence from Denmark, there is little doubt the US could pay every man woman and child US$1 million each to join the US with full citizenship rights.
Granted, the Canadian takeover would be a harder sell. But with the Liberal-NDP (socialist) government's decade-long mis-management, governing under an anti-growth leftist ideological regime, a surprising number of Canadians are willing to entertain Trump's offer. But there would be many who would want to give the rising Conservative Party leader Pierre Polievre a chance, but there are many others who have given up hope and want a new beginning.
Yet virtually everything dire Mr Trump has said about the Panama Canal is unsupported by solid evidence. China in no way runs the canal to disadvantage others. Such may be true of China's Belt and Road activities in South America, which may well be a source of legitimate worry, but that has little to do with the Panama Canal, who owns it, who runs it, and how it is operated.
It is said that "the US is one of the canal's biggest users, with a large percentage of global trade passing through it, and it has a vested interest in ensuring the canal remains secure and functional." So says ChatGPT when asked.
But how true is that? "The US is one of the canal biggest users. . ." That is true to the extent that much, perhaps most transiting the canal is bound for US ports. But the actual ships carrying that cargo - the ones paying transit fees - are neither Chinese nor American, but chiefly Italian-Swiss, Danish, French, German, Taiwanese, South Korean and Japanese.
Nor is the statement that China has a Panama bases, from which it can control the canal true. What the bases amount to is the existence of a Hong Kong-based Hutchison-Whampoa container terminal at one end. At the other end, the terminal is run by the port operating unit of Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), the world biggest container shipping company. Two years ago MSC took over the terminal from the Chinese Shandong Landbridge Group.
It is true that now Hong Kong is under direct control of Beijing, there is a risk of undue pressure on Hutchison. Nonetheless, it is hard to see what advantage putting pressure on the container terminals could bring to bear on canal operations that would not hamper Chinese trade flow, a result that would be hardly please Beijing.
In general, the Panama Canal Authority has run the canal well through good times and bad. Its last 10 years have marked heroic progress, overcoming crushing engineering disappointments and financial crises as they approached the last mile of their historic, spectacular expansion.
The Panama Canal Authority had hoped to complete the expansion by 1914, the centenary of the first opening of the waterway by the Americans, who took over the "Canal Zone" and made it US territory. The territory had been a part of Columbia, but the US backed the rebels against the Columbians. Having defeated the Columbians, the US then defeated the Panamanian rebels and made Panama a US a colony until 1939. Since then, the Panamanians gained home rule, except for the Canal Zone, which remained in US hands. In 1999, President Jimmy Carter gave that up, bowing to world pressure, which had also induced Britain and France to give up their rights to the Suez Canal to Egypt.
Even before the Panama Canal expansion, US east coast ports, led by Savannah, Georgia, saw advantage using the canal to get cargo from China to US consumer-rich regions east of the Mississippi. Instead of costly intermodal transfer from ship to truck and train, why not keep your cargo on the water - have the ship be your warehouse" was one pitch - so it will arrive closer to the point of sale at less cost on the east coast where population densities come close to those of western Europe.
Intriguing as this was, the canal expansion was to have a far more profound effect after the programme was completed in 2016. Simply put, the panamax ship pre-expansion was 4,500-TEU. Post expansion, the superpostpanamax was 13,000 TEU. Expansion not only increased the number of ships transiting the canal, but tripled the tonnage.
While one has little understanding for Mr Trump's Panama Canal concerns, one can sympathize with his fears of a Chinese threat looming in South America.
Former president Joe Biden’s trip to Peru to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit experienced a sobering reminder of how far the United States has fallen in Latin America. Instead of being met with displays of friendship, Mr Biden’s motorcade passed through streets lined with Peruvians waving Chinese flags. It was a humiliating welcome for the president and shows America’s waning leadership in a region it once considered its backyard.
In contrast to the United States, Chinese President Xi Jinping was the main attraction at the summit and was honoured with a state visit in Lima. While the United States has focused on other regions, China has slowly cultivated Latin America by building diplomatic and economic relations across the region for the past two decades. Beijing is able to present itself as an alternative to Washington - capitalising on Latin resentment towards Washington.
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