The narrative surrounding the reversion of the Panama Canal and the transfer of its administration to Panamanian hands—after 74 years of U.S. occupation—has been sustained by three main influences. First, the historical demands for sovereignty and economic compensation that emerged following the signing of the Hay-Bunau Varilla Treaty (1903), an agreement between the governments of Panama and the United States for the construction of the Canal. Second, the anti-imperialist movement that arose in former colonies of the Global South after the U.S. defeat in Vietnam. And third, the diplomatic strategy of Panamanian dictator Omar Torrijos, which was crucial in securing the support of organizations such as the Non-Aligned Movement, the UN Security Council, and the Organization of American States (OAS), leading the United States to recognize the need to negotiate and end the dispute over the Canal’s sovereignty.
A lesser-known player in the negotiations of the Torrijos-Carter Treaties (1977), which replaced the Hay-Bunau Varilla Treaty, was the Trilateral Commission, an organization founded by David Rockefeller in 1973. The role of this commission, along with that of the economic power groups in the United States, in the signing of the agreement was documented in several publications of the time, which will serve as references to explain how neoliberalism handed the Canal over to Panama. Among these publications are The Treaty That Wall Street Wrote (1977) by American economist Murray N. Rothbard; Ten Theses on the Panama Canal Treaties (1979) by Spanish Jesuit and economist Xabier Gorostiaga; Carter and the Trilateral (1979) by Brazilian journalist Paulo Canabrava; and Effects of the Torrijos Regime on the Economic Structure (1982) by Panamanian economist José E. Torres.
The Trilateral Commission was an entity composed of political, business, and academic leaders from the United States, Western Europe, and Japan—at the time, the three main axes of Western power—who sought to restore U.S. dominance under a vision of a multipolar world, which required coordinated actions to maintain the stability of the capitalist system in an era of the growing transnationalization of Latin American economies.
One of the most relevant aspects of this Trilateral Commission was its composition and the participation and influence of its members both within the business fabric of the United States and in President Jimmy Carter’s administration. Among these figures was Sol Linowitz, appointed as the negotiator of the Torrijos-Carter Treaty (1977), who was also a director of Marine Midland Bank; Treasury Secretary W. Michael Blumenthal (1977-1979), former president of Bendix Corporation (1969-1977); and Peter Peterson, president of Lehman Brothers (1973-1984) and a member of the Linowitz Commission. Additionally, there were Secretary of State Cyrus Vance (1977-1980) and National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski (1977-1981), the latter being one of the principal architects of the Commission.
Jimmy Carter’s relationship with the Trilateral Commission began in 1972 when he attended a dinner organized by Zbigniew Brzezinski, where he was introduced to David Rockefeller. During that meeting, Brzezinski and Rockefeller agreed that Carter was the ideal candidate to support, leading to his inclusion as a founding member of the Trilateral Commission.
Carter’s role in the negotiations of the canal treaties was more that of a pacifier than a true advocate for Panama’s claims. In the article Jimmy Carter’s Ruinous Neoliberal Legacy, published in 2025, American economic policy expert Jonathan Schlefer states: “Carter pushed the nation, and even the world, into the dark place we find ourselves in today—sharply turning toward neoliberalism and weaponizing markets.” Under this paradigm as a driver of neoliberalism, Carter crafted a treaty so ambiguous that Torrijos was forced to accept an imperfect agreement, under which the United States retained control over the use of the Canal while Panama remained “under the Pentagon’s umbrella.”
The convergence of U.S. and Western economic interests backing the Torrijos-Carter Treaty negotiations aimed to secure a treaty that: a) “disposed of the last remnants of a naïve and outdated American imperialism, a leftover from Theodore Roosevelt’s innocent but clumsy arrogance”; b) prevented a more intense conflict with Panama that could escalate into a guerrilla war; and, ultimately, c) ensured the right of U.S. warships to use the Canal by guaranteeing its neutrality and the permanent right to expedited passage.
The truth is that the treaty negotiations had been in the works since the early 1970s—at the beginning of Torrijos’ administration. The return of the Panama Canal was already considered a crucial step in 1971 to ensure the stability of U.S. investments in Latin America. This strategy, led by David Rockefeller, aligned with the 1970 banking reform promoted by Omar Torrijos, which transformed Panama into a financial center with no fiscal regulations.
As a result, major institutions such as Bank of America, Chase Manhattan Bank, and First National City Bank entered the Panamanian market with assets exceeding US$8 billion while also facilitating loans to the Panamanian government. Panama’s external debt skyrocketed—from less than US$200 million in 1968 to US$1.8 billion in 1977—securing the dominance of international banking over the Panamanian economy.
According to the cited authors, “the treaties have negotiated, more than the Canal itself, the modern presence of the United States in Panama, thus ensuring the stability of the transnational service platform, which is essential in the era of the transnationalization of Latin American economies.” These treaties subjected not only the canal zone to American dominance but also the entire Panamanian economy.
These scholars also hint at how the banking system reform carried out by Torrijos in 1970 “provided a favorable tax-free haven, free from burdensome regulations, for foreign banks in Panama, in the same way that Panama had long provided a flag of convenience for global shipping.” Rockefeller’s interests and those of the Trilateral group extended beyond the financial sector and included the protection of Pan Am’s airline operations, which had its hub in Panama.
As a narrative element, the evidence presented in the articles cited in this text clearly explains that the return of the Canal to Panama was not solely a matter of anti-imperialist pressures but also involved a significant component of political, military, and, above all, economic and financial power reconfiguration. This process was orchestrated and coordinated by U.S. business and financial elites, who saw a hard occupation of the Canal as an obstacle to the transnational expansion of their companies and banks in developing countries.
*Machine translation proofread by Janaína da Silva.
Autor
Geographer and historian from the University of Panama. Associate researcher at the Urban Risk Observatory at Florida State University. Master in Geographic Information Technologies from the Autonomous University of Barcelona,
