US Involvement in Panama Essay Example

Imperialism. Something that could change the way that the U.S. is seen across the world. Good or Bad? Either way, this idea is making its way around the world and into the U.S. and now we are acting on it, recently the U.S. proposed an idea to build a canal through Panama to upgrade U.S. trade. But they denied this. They didn’t want a canal running through their country. So, we encouraged them to start a revolt against their government. They were now a free territory from Colombia. Which is a wonderful thing for us because now they were able to help us in many beneficial ways by allowing us to build the canal that we believe is necessary. 

As great as this may seem it does break some things that the United States of America has prided itself on for decades. We took land away from the people of this country. This could have been their homes, schools, and working space and who knows what else. This takes away a great amount of freedom and opportunity. I believe that while encouraging this revolt they didn’t know what the people of Panama were fighting for. I’m sure that they didn’t know that 51 miles of their land were going to be taken away. Did they know that approving this would affect their lives? It also made many people sick. Many people that were working to dig the canal got yellow fever and malaria. This affected so many people. At least 40,000 people were helping dig the canal. That's 40,000 people that were affected just by disease. 

Although many ways of building the canal violated the ideals of our country, it wasn't all bad. There are many things that we did that helped and followed the ideals. One major thing was helping them become the country that they wanted to be. We wanted to lease land from them to build the canal but their Colombian government at the time said no. This was not fair to the people of Panama. They never got to decide whether they wanted it or not. And many were angry that the canal was not going to be built. So with this, we encourage a revolt. We did this by helping them with everything they needed. We sent warships to help Panama so the Colombian government couldn't “smash” them. 

Panama is finally its own country. And with this canal, it not only brings us new opportunities with bringing in many trade opportunities but it is also helping them with new opportunities like income and jobs. The facts are undeniable but the real question is it worth it?