What Trump got right and wrong about the Panama Canal at his inauguration | Fact checks
In the first speech of his second term, President Donald Trump denounced a deal made decades ago, when the U.S. turned over the Panama Canal to the country for which it's named.
“We have been treated very badly from this foolish gift that should never have been made,” Trump said during his inaugural speech. “And Panama’s promise to us has been broken. The purpose of our deal and the spirit of our treaty has been totally violated.”
Trump has, in the weeks ahead of his inauguration, threatened to have the U.S. reassert control of the Panama Canal, including possible military action, as Paste BN reported. Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino criticized Trump's earlier remarks, saying “every square meter” of the Panama Canal would continue to belong to Panama.
Here’s what the Paste BN Fact Check Team found after researching some of Trump’s claims at the inauguration about the Panama Canal.
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Donald Trump claim: Panama Canal construction left 38,000 Americans dead
“The United States, I mean think of this, spent more money than ever spent on a project before and lost 38,000 lives in the building of the Panama Canal.”
There were multiple attempts to build the Panama Canal, the vital passageway between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. But while thousands of people died in these efforts, the toll of American deaths does not remotely approach 38,000 lives Trump claimed in his inaugural address.
Matthew Parker, author of “Hell’s Gorge: The Battle to Build the Panama Canal,” told the BBC that about 25,000 people died, many from mosquito-borne viruses, in the failed French attempt to build the canal in the 1880s. Parker said “virtually none” was American. Rather, they were largely French and Jamaican, he said.
During the U.S. period of construction from about 1904 to 1914, about 6,000 people died, Parker said in the BBC interview, “almost all of whom were from Barbados.” About 300 Americans died in this effort, he said.
These figures are largely in line with other estimates of the death toll in the efforts to build the canal, which was completed in 1914.
-Andre Byik
Donald Trump claim: China is operating the Panama Canal
“China is operating the Panama Canal, and we didn’t give it to China, we gave it to Panama, and we’re taking it back.”
Trump, echoing a claim from December, claimed in his inaugural address that China is operating the Panama Canal, which Panama has repeatedly disputed.
Trump has threatened to have the U.S. take back control of the canal because of what he called “exorbitant” rates charged for using the waterway, which the U.S. built and operated before a treaty transferred control to Panama on Dec. 31, 1999. The Panamanian government controls the canal through the Panama Canal Authority, an 11-member board that oversees the waterway’s maintenance and security.
Canal administrator Ricaurte Vásquez told The Associated Press that a Hong Kong consortium won a bid in 1997 that allows Chinese companies to operate in ports at the ends of the canal. But U.S. and Taiwanese companies also operate ports along the canal, which is open to commerce from all countries, Vásquez said. Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino has said market conditions are used to set passage rates and that China was not influencing the country.
The United States is the canal’s biggest user, accounting for about 75% of canal traffic in fiscal year 2024. China comes in second at 21%.
-Kim Breen
Donald Trump claim: Panama Canal cost more than any other US project at the time
“The United States, I mean think of this, spent more money (on the Panama Canal) than ever spent on a project before.”
Trump, speaking here in his inaugural address, is correct. The Panama Canal, which Trump has repeatedly discussed taking back control of, was the most expensive public works project in U.S. history up until that time, with about $302 million spent on construction between 1903 and 1914, according to a 2006 Harvard Business School study. In 2024 dollars, that’s roughly $9.5 billion.
The U.S. also spent about $40 million to purchase the assets of the New Panama Canal Company and paid Panama’s government about $10 million, the study says. It also built barracks, shore defenses and naval support facilities to defend the canal.
Similarly, the Panama Canal’s website says the project cost the U.S. about $375 million, including the $10 million paid to Panama, the $40 million paid to the company and $12 million for fortifications.
“It was the single most expensive construction project in United States history to that time,” the website says.
Julie Green, a history professor at the University of Maryland, also told PBS in 2014 that the Panama Canal was the “largest public construction project in U.S. history.”
-Chris Mueller