Panama Canal: Giving Up The Ship?

The looming handover of the Panama Canal has fired some serious separation anxiety in the U.S.

Panama has always been a place where strange truth gives fiction a run for its money. In John le Carre's 1996 novel The Tailor of Panama, a Cockney living in Panama City tricks money out of British intelligence by stitching up a plot involving Asians' taking over the Panama Canal. In real-life Panama, the story is no less peculiar: a new President is about to be sworn in amid charges that the government has switched control of the canal to a company allegedly controlled by the Chinese People's Liberation Army. The catfight over that is just a preview. The canal handover--the...

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