- We are joined by Professor Noel Maurer, who is in fact Professor of International Affairs at the George Washington University in Washington DC.

Author of "The Big Ditch: How America Took, Built, Ran, and Ultimately Gave Away the Panama Canal".

Professor, great to have you with us.

- Thank you, great to be here.

- Okay, first of all, "The Big Ditch", where the heck did that title come from?

- That's the nickname for the canal, but couldn't resist the pun because the US did give it back.

- Explain to folks how and why did we give it back?

- So the short version is the US possession of the Panama Canal was causing a huge public relations problem both in Panama and across Latin America.

And the economic benefits to the United States from the canal had almost disappeared.

So you have all these presidents trying to actually get rid of it from Eisenhower onwards.

The thing is, is it's.

- Hold on one second.

After, one second, Professor, was it after World War II that the value of the Panama Canal was dramatically less than what it was?

- That's correct.

Basically what happened.

- So they're trying to give it away.

To who?

- You got it.

But it's incredibly unpopular within the United States as you can imagine.

So it's a huge political lift and no one manages to do it until Jimmy Carter decides to set his presidency basically on fire in order to push the Panama Canal Treaty through the Senate.

- What year does Jimmy Carter do that?

- 1977, and it's a huge issue.

I'm a seven-year-old kid living in Brooklyn, and I knew this was happening, and that's not because of the economic importance of the Panama Canal.

- Did Carter take a lot of heat for it?

- He took a huge amount of heat for it.

In fact, three senators lost their job.

One of the senators invited his wife down to the floor when he voted to ratify the treaty and said, why don't you come and watch me lose my seat, honey?

- What I'm trying to understand, Professor, why was it so unpopular to give away the Panama Canal if the Panama Canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans?

It's a narrow passage there, the isthmus, if you will, of Panama, shortening the trip by 8,000 miles.

- If it was much less valuable than during wartime, then why was it so unpopular to give it away?

- National pride, it's a symbol.

It's one of the great American achievements.

This is the 1970s, you're coming out of the Vietnam War.

You've got all of these worries about the Soviet Union and American decline, and this becomes a symbol.

The only reason Carter manages to get it through is the politics from a modern standpoint, from 2026, look really bizarre because the right is split.

You actually have Ronald Reagan arguing against giving the canal back, and you have John Wayne and William F. Buckley arguing in favor of giving it back.

- Hold on one second.

William F. Buckley, the iconic and important conservative who, for those of us connected to public broadcasting know that "Firing Line", that Margaret Hoover currently anchors, would not be "Firing Line" were it not for the late, great Buckley.

Here's the question.

Why was John Wayne involved?

- John Wayne knew the dictator of Panama, Omar Torrijos.

And was convinced that it was a bad idea.

- So John, the late, great John Wayne, right?

- Conservative, movie star, big Republican.

He's friends with what?

- Omar Torrijos is an interesting guy, but he, for all reports is he's a charmer.

He rides horses, he loves cowboy movies.

He can be pro-American except when he's not.

And he does an amazing job of charming people and saying, look, I don't like communists.

You don't like communists.

Having the Panama Canal, this American territory sit in the middle of Panama, is causing massive problems for the US image in Latin America and in Panama.

I have to reign back popular demonstrations and popular anger.

So why don't you just give it back?

It's not, it's actually losing you money at this point.

- By the way, connect, go to our website, SteveAdubato.org.

Look at our series, "Remember Them" that Jacqui Tricarico and I do together.

We actually did a feature on Major General George Washington Goethals.

Okay, otherwise, the "Gah-thals", we call it the "Gah-thals" Bridge or the Goethals.

Don't even go there.

We had a military historian.

We were debating six different ways to say his name, Goethals.

But is there a New Jersey connection to the Panama Canal and is that connection through Goethals?

- Yes, there's two actually.

And it's through, I grew up in Brooklyn, so I say "Gah-thals".

Goethals.

- Wait a minute.

Hold on.

- The state engineer of... - Are you saying that how you say the name depends upon where you're from, what borough you're from, or whether you're from Jersey?

- Where you're, if you're from Jersey and New York, you say "Gah-thals".

- Okay, go ahead.

- If you're in the rest of the United States or Belgium, you would say something more like Goethals.

- Got it.

Goethals was born and raised in Brooklyn.

So while we don't have recordings of him, I'm willing to bet he said his name the way you and I do.

- Okay, so he's an important figure in the region, in the country, and in the world.

- And he becomes state engineer of New Jersey after the Panama Canal.

After running our logistics efforts in World War I. He also becomes one of the first consulting engineers with the Port Authority when it's founded.

- So are you saying that that Goethals' work in connection with the Panama Canal helped establish his reputation as an extraordinary engineer and leader and manager?

- Correct.

That's exactly right.

- What percentage of Americans do you think have any idea about what the Panama Canal was, the big ditch, why it was, and why it didn't then matter much anymore?

- I think of the latter part, why it didn't matter anymore.

I think almost nobody knows that.

That's an abstruse point for economic historians like myself to dig up and calculate.

On the other hand, the Panama Canal, given that President Trump made such- - Yeah.

- A Huge deal about it makes me think it still resonates with a large chunk of the American people.

- But what does Trump want?

Does he wanna name it the Trump Canal?

What does he wanna do?

- It's not clear.

In theory he wants to take it back.

- For what?

For what strategic reason?

- Two reasons that I can think of.

That there's some evidence in favor of both.

One is the Panamanians are now running the canal.

- Okay.

- And they've raised rates to very high levels, and no one cared when that was affecting Chinese ships exporting manufactured goods to us.

Right?

- Yeah.

- Who cares?

- Who cares?

- But in the last few years, the United States has become a major LNG, liquified natural gas exporter, and those cargoes are moving in the other direction through the canal to Asia.

So high prices and some problems where the canal's actually been shut for a while due to low water levels, forcing our cargoes to go all the long way around, around the Cape of Good Hope to Asia, which raises the price of liquified natural gas by maybe 25%.

- Are you saying President Trump may have a point here?

- Yeah, he might, actually, yes.

- This is something we're gonna look into deeper and first of all, thank you for putting the Panama Canal in context.

This is Professor Noel Maurer, who is a Professor of International Affairs at George Washington University.

Author of "The Big Ditch: How America Took, Built, Ran, and Ultimately Gave Away the Panama Canal".

Professor, thank you so much for joining us.

We appreciate it.

- Thank you so much, it was great.

- You got it.

Stay with us, we'll be right back.

- [Narrator] Think Tank with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

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