Panama changed the world By dividing one ocean in two, the isthmus created the Caribbean and the Eastern Tropical Pacific, which then created two very different marine ecosystems, creating an evolutionary experiment perfect for learning how organisms in deep times changed with their climate. The Panama Canal serves as a maritime shortcut that saves time and costs in transporting all types of goods. The 80-kilometer waterway connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans at one of the narrowest points on the American continent. The Panama Canal is important because it serves as an important shortcut between Pacific ports and the destinations of the Atlantic.
Before the completion of the channel, a ship from Los Angeles heading to Europe would have to follow the coast of South America to the southernmost point of Tierra del Fuego (Argentina) or through the Strait of Magellan. Others surrounded Cape Horn and then headed north along the coast before crossing into Europe. This was a much longer trip, and the canal shortened it by about 8,000 nautical miles. Naturally, this saved a significant amount of money, since a trip from start to finish would be completed much faster, saving fuel and all operating costs, which increase over time. After its independence in 1903, Panama negotiates an agreement with the United States for the construction of the Canal where the United States sends warships to Panama City (in the Pacific) and Colón (in the Atlantic) in support of Panamanian independence.
This task fell to President Clinton in 1999, when the channel officially came under Panamanian control. The newly declared Republic of Panama immediately appointed Philippe Bunau-Varilla (a French engineer who had participated in the previous attempt to build the Lesseps Canal) as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary. The first firm effort to build an all-water route through Panama began with the French in 1880, but financial problems and diseases caused the initiative to fail. The problem was that the person who signed the treaty on behalf of Panama, Philippe Bunau-Varilla, wasn't even Panamanian.
He took control of the Panamanian company, possibly because taking over from the French meant not starting from scratch. The U.S. government was determined to create infrastructure to increase trade, and the Panama Canal became what was possibly its biggest effort up to that point. He gave control of the Panama Canal in compliance with the Torrijos-Carter Treaty signed by President Jimmy Carter in 1977. But what if I told you that perhaps Americans' greatest engineering achievement wasn't even in the United States, but in Panama? Before the Panama Canal was built, ships traveling between the east and west coasts of the American continent had to go around Cape Horn in South America, a journey that was about 8,000 nautical miles longer than the one that crossed the canal and that took about two months to complete. The United States then signed a new treaty, the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty, with the new Panamanian government, in which the United States obtained total control of the territory and the canal project.
The waterway is now managed by the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) for its acronym in Spanish.), an autonomous government entity. In 1976, President Carter signed a treaty that handed over control of the canal to Panama in 1999 in exchange for a promise that the canal would remain open for international use.
