The United States has a vested interest in the secure, efficient, and reliable operation of the Panama Canal, and that was always understood. We would and will NEVER let it fall into the wrong hands! It was not given for the benefit of others, but merely as a token of cooperation with us and Panama.
The canal was seen as the keystone of American empire and the greatest security for American dominance in the Western hemisphere. Alfred Thayer Mahan... wrote in 1897, 'the Isthmus, with all that depends upon it,-its canal and its approaches on either hand... In it the United States has asserted a special interest.'
Theodore Roosevelt... declared that his own expansive vision for the United States rested upon the completion of an isthmian canal connecting the two great oceans bordering the United States.
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