The Sovereign Society has for years recommended Panama for its first-world infrastructure, its outstanding bank secrecy laws and most importantly its willingness to stand up to the USA and say “No.”
Still, Panama is highly dependent on revenues from its namesake canal to sustain its standard of living—by far the highest per capita in central America. And that’s why we were pleased to see that last week’s special election led to an overwhelming mandate from the people to authorize spending for further construction of a new set of locks for the nearly 100-year-old canal.
There’s nothing wrong with the original canal except that the size of its locks limit traffic and restrict the size of the ships that can pass through. Supertankers and other ships and other modern ships simply don’t fit.
The expansion of the canal is an investment in Panama’s continued prosperity. And a prosperous Panama is one that will be able to continue to stand up to its gringo “Uncle” to the north.
