Connection: Hard To Give Up

The transfer of the Panama Canal from American to Panamanian control has been controversial among Northwest conservatives for 20 years.

Support for the Panama Canal Treaty in 1979 is one of the things that cost U.S. Sen. Frank Church of Idaho his job.

Last week, U.S. Rep. Helen Chenoweth-Hage, R-Idaho, proposed a bill that would have contested the treaty and blocked the transfer. But the bill was introduced in the closing days of Congress, and even ChenowethHage conceded the bill was unlikely to get a hearing before the Dec. 31 transfer.

She said she was merely trying to raise the issue of the canal and its importance to U.S. strategic interests.

In Spokane last week, presidential candidate Steve Forbes told local Republicans that Congress should reopen the treaty because a Chinese company has purchased key property at either end of the canal. Keeping the canal open is a key national security issue, Forbes said.

At a later news conference, Forbes refused to rule out the use of American troops to keep the canal open after the transfer to Panama.

“If the canal is threatened, we have an obligation to keep it open,” he said. “That can be done peacefully, unless the Chinese want to make it a confrontation.”