4This ambition was reaffirmed in November 2025, when the U.S. administration released its new National Security Strategy, which revived the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 and introduced a “Trump Corollary,” in the tradition of the famous “Roosevelt Corollary” of 1904:

• 6 National Security Strategy of the United States of America, Washington, D. C., The White House, Nov (...)

We want to ensure that the Western Hemisphere remains reasonably stable and well-governed enough to prevent and discourage mass migration to the United States; […] we want a Hemisphere that remains free of hostile foreign incursion or ownership of key assets, and that supports critical supply chains; and we want to ensure our continued access to key strategic locations. In other words, we will assert and enforce a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine.6

5This 21st-century adaptation of the Monroe Doctrine is clearly intended to respond to China’s growing influence over the Americas and seeks to ensure the United States’ preeminence over the continent’s strategic infrastructure, starting with the interoceanic canal.

6The meaning of the Panamanian prelate’s remarks thus becomes clear. In the homily cited above, he seeks to underscore the importance of the canal, as well as the principles of sovereignty and freedom, in the nation-building process of his country, a territory whose primary economic function—interoceanic transit—has aroused the ambitions of the major empires since the earliest days of Spanish colonization at the dawn of the sixteenth century. Since its creation in 1903, the republic has largely shaped its identity and social cohesion around this interoceanic vocation and the claim to a Panamanian canal free from U.S. tutelage, if not from the influence of the great powers. Its struggle was punctuated by failed or incomplete reforms of the 1903 treaty (in 1926, 1936, and 1955), by student and labor mobilizations, and by recurring crises (notably in 1958 and 1964), before culminating in the successful campaign led between 1964 and 1977 by Panamanian diplomats, jurists, and political leaders.

8Panama is a small country located at the crossroads of Central America. It constitutes a highly strategic space, which helps to explain the sustained interest it has attracted from decision-makers around the world for centuries. Scholars, too, have devoted considerable attention to the country—whether by examining the profound geopolitical reconfigurations that shaped the Central American and Caribbean region at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when the construction of an interoceanic canal was at stake (Mack G., 1944; McCullough D.; Ricard S., 2016; Marcilhacy D., 2023); by analyzing the memories constructed around this monument of engineering (Mollier J.-Y., 2025); by tracing the struggle of the young Republic of Panama to regain sovereignty over the canal and the territorial strip that borders it (LaFeber W., 1979; Selser G., 1989); by investigating the role of the Canal Zone and its Escuela de las Américas in counterinsurgency campaigns from the 1950s to the 1980s (Gill L., 2004); by reassessing the 1989 invasion against General Noriega (Hosoda H., 2024); or, by addressing recent U.S. ambitions to reassert control over the interoceanic canal.

9For our part, we have chosen to approach this issue on a Pan-American scale. Both a connective link and a source of contention within the continent, the interoceanic canal and the zone surrounding it lie at the heart of the turbulent relations between the United States and Latin America. Over time, they have become emblematic of the asymmetrical relationships prevailing between Latin America and the United States. We nevertheless sought to move beyond this apparent self-evidence. The bilateral relationship is marked by significant tensions, yet it can also be a site of convergence between Panama and the United States. Furthermore, as a meeting point of diverse cultures, economic systems, and political frameworks—where dialogue and conflict coexist—Panama offers a privileged vantage point for understanding inter-American relations, serving as their laboratory par excellence. In studying this history, it proved fruitful not to limit the analysis to Latin America alone, but to also draw on scholarship focused on the United States, as the topic itself necessitates.

10This special issue seeks to go further by connecting local and regional concerns to global perspectives. Since the early twentieth century, Panama has been a key actor in globalization, owing to the presence of the interoceanic canal. By engaging with these multiple scales, we aim to contribute to a history of globalization that is firmly grounded in a specific territory and attentive to the perspectives of its actors. The intention is to treat Panama as a subject rather than an object of analysis, thereby recognizing the agency of Panamanians, which remains real despite the asymmetry of U.S. power.

11The originality of this special issue also lies in its historical perspective. The study spans a century and a half and two distinct phases of globalization: from the French-led canalization projects of the Isthmus in 1880 to the mid-2020s, a period marked by heightened rivalries between China and the United States. The return of Donald Trump to power lends additional relevance to our theme. It does not, however, create it, as the articles collected here clearly show. By adopting a longue durée perspective, this special issue highlights not only the disruptions characteristic of each period but also the continuities that persist over time.

12It opens with a series of articles that examine the construction of the canal within the framework of French and then U.S. imperialism. Samuel Poyard revisits the 1880s, during the era of the Compagnie Universelle du Canal, drawing on both French and U.S. sources to explore the motivations of foreign actors while also considering the responses of local populations, which remain under-studied. Marixa Lasso’s contribution examines the institutionalization of the U.S.-controlled enclave, the Canal Zone—a process she terms “zonification.” She analyzes how relations between U.S. and Panamanian authorities were shaped while Panamanian nation-building unfolded under the shadow of an emerging U.S. imperial power.

13Carolin Görgen builds on this reflection by exploring how the construction of the canal was perceived by Americans. She conducts her study from California—the state that hosted the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915. She relies on photography, a source that has long been underutilized by historians. This innovative approach enables her to analyze the U.S. imperial imaginaries in the early twentieth century while also highlighting the importance of environmental concerns.

14Patricia Pizzurno, for her part, examines how Panamanian elites approached questions of race in the early twentieth century, at a time when many canal workers came from the Caribbean. She demonstrates that these elites were not only caught between admiration for the “civilizing” model represented by the United States, a desire to project a cosmopolitan identity, and persistent racism, but also sought, from the 1920s onward, to counter U.S. influence by emphasizing the Hispanic roots of the nation. This search for origins led them to assert a Pan-American identity rooted in the memory of the first Amphictyonic Congress of 1826, held on Panamanian soil, even as the United States claimed the right to be the sole instigators of Pan-Americanism. David Marcilhacy explores this dynamic through the Inter-American Women’s Congress organized by Panama in 1926. Beyond the issues raised by commemorative mobilization around the centenary, he highlights women’s agency in the struggle for their rights and the transnational dimension of their activism, while also revealing the enduring social and gender cleavages within Panamanian society.

15Several articles also address the Panamanian question from the Colombian perspective. Diego Felipe González Gómez explores the impact of U.S. intervention in the interoceanic canal project on Colombian political life before the 1903 secession. The conservatives in power, for whom the loss of Panama was unthinkable, proved unable to fully comprehend the aspirations of the people of the isthmus or to correctly assess the risks posed by opposing the treaty under negotiation with Washington, D.C.. Christian Casas García adopts a diplomatic lens. He studies how Colombia, after losing Panama, sought to protect itself from U.S. annexationist ambitions and to safeguard its sovereignty over the archipelago of San Andrés and Providencia by invoking international law at the League of Nations, an organization where Latin American states could leverage the strength of numbers.

16Isabelle Vagnoux considers the perspective of U.S. actors, focusing on the relatively understudied negotiation period from 1969 to 1977, which led to the retrocession of the canal. She highlights the diversity of interests involved, the rivalries between the Republican and Democratic parties as they successively held power, tensions between the White House and Congress, and divisions within the executive branch itself, all shaped by the broader context of the Cold War. Félix Chirú Barrios, in turn, examines the retrocession of the canal from the Panamanian perspective, exploring how Panamanians commemorate October 1, 1979, particularly in terms of resistance to imperialism. This approach is especially significant given the prominence of commemorative issues in both public memory and historical scholarship since the 1970s.

17Haruko Hosoda, for her part, investigates Panama within the context of influence struggles among Pacific powers, shifting the focus from the usual China-centered perspective to the role of Japan. Since the mid-twentieth century, Japan has contributed to the canal’s modernization to safeguard its interests as a major economic power vis-à-vis the United States and later China. This strategy has enabled Panama to diversify partners and reduce its dependence on superpowers. This article provides a key reference for understanding how little and middle powers navigate and strategize to defend their interests in a globalized, multipolar world.

18Jim Cohen, in turn, engages in a study of immediate history or history of the present. He analyzes the effects of the early months of Donald Trump’s second presidency on Panama, in terms of sovereignism, remilitarization, and U.S.-China rivalry. His approach examines presidential rhetoric while also considering how it has been perceived by Panamanians.

19Finally, two interviews deepen the reflections presented in this special issue. Former diplomat Omar Jaén Suárez considers the geopolitical stakes through the lens of Panama’s multi-century history, combining scholarly analysis with his political experience as a participant in the Torrijos-Carter treaty negotiations of the 1970s. Photographer Matías Costa introduces us to the last Zonians: U.S. nationals who once lived in the Canal Zone, an enclave that ceased to exist after the canal’s retrocession but whose memory they continue to preserve. Their “suspended identity” underscores the enduring significance of memory in contemporary societies, including its instrumentalization by Donald Trump and his supporters.