The Panama Canal, a man-made marvel connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, is at the center of a heated debate in Washington. With a growing focus on US national security and trade priorities, former President Donald Trump has floated the idea of returning the canal to American control.
Republican Congressman Dusty Johnson recently introduced the Panama Canal Repurchase Act to kickstart negotiations. But can the U.S. really regain control over this critical waterway? Here’s a closer look at why this proposal is gaining attention, what it aims to accomplish, and the potential roadblocks ahead.
The Panama Canal plays a major role in global trade and is especially important for the U.S. economy. Approximately 40% of U.S. container exports pass through the canal. In total, about 73% of its traffic consists of American imports and exports. pic.twitter.com/5wTMWHPILi
— JD Rucker (@JDRucker) January 27, 2025
Why the Panama Canal Matters
The Panama Canal plays a major role in global trade and is especially important for the U.S. economy. Approximately 40% of U.S. container exports pass through the canal. In total, about 73% of its traffic consists of American imports and exports. These numbers highlight its strategic value not just for trade but for national security as well.
Representative Dusty Johnson emphasized that American energy and agricultural exports rely heavily on the canal. From liquefied natural gas shipments to grain exports, the canal supports industries that drive the U.S. economy. Any disruptions to its operations could have ripple effects that harm American businesses and consumers alike.
Chinese companies currently manage port operations on both ends of the canal, raising concerns about foreign influence in the region. Johnson highlighted China’s growing global presence through its Belt and Road Initiative, which has expanded Chinese control over infrastructure projects worldwide. He argued that keeping the Panama Canal out of Chinese hands should be a top priority for U.S. policymakers.
Trump’s Push for Negotiations
Donald Trump’s call to repurchase the Panama Canal is rooted in his broader strategy to reduce America’s trade deficit and prioritize national security. The proposed repurchase aligns with his long-standing focus on reviving domestic industries by ensuring reliable trade infrastructure.
Although Panama’s government has stated the canal isn’t available for repurchase, proponents of the plan see negotiations as a first step. Representative Johnson, who has a background in business, believes that even skeptical parties can reach a deal through meaningful discussions. Johnson expressed confidence in Trump’s deal-making abilities, adding that opening talks with Panama could eventually lead to a mutually beneficial agreement.
Key Concerns and Challenges
The prospect of repurchasing the Panama Canal faces significant hurdles, both politically and diplomatically. Panama sees the canal as a core part of its national sovereignty, which means any proposal to transfer control would likely be met with resistance. Additionally, the complex legal and financial implications of such a deal are not yet clear.
There are concerns over the role of the Chinese Communist Party in the canal’s operations. Chinese firms currently control major ports on both the Atlantic and Pacific sides. While this arrangement doesn’t grant Beijing full control of the canal, it underscores China’s increasing influence in critical trade chokepoints. U.S. officials worry this could pose long-term risks to national security and trade interests.
Could Military Options Be on the Table?
One idea that has surfaced is whether the U.S. military would play a role in regaining control of the canal. However, Rep. Johnson was clear that his bill aims to start negotiations—not take military action. He stressed that respecting Panama’s sovereignty is a central tenet of his proposal. While others have floated the idea of military involvement, Johnson’s legislation focuses strictly on building a framework for diplomatic discussions.
What’s Next for the Panama Canal Repurchase Act?
The journey to repurchase the Panama Canal, if it happens, will be a long one. Johnson’s bill is just the first step, authorizing the President to engage in talks with Panama. Whether these discussions result in a deal remains uncertain, but they signal a renewed interest in securing the canal’s role in U.S. trade and security.
The broader context—such as the U.S.-China rivalry and evolving global trade patterns—adds additional urgency to the debate. As discussions continue, policymakers will need to weigh the economic and security benefits of repurchasing the canal against the diplomatic complexities involved.
Conclusion
The Panama Canal has been a cornerstone of global trade since its completion in 1914, and its role in U.S. economic and security strategies cannot be overstated. While reasserting control over the canal is a controversial and complex proposition, it’s clear why leaders like Donald Trump and Dusty Johnson see it as a topic worth pursuing.
With tensions over foreign influence and trade deficits growing, the Panama Canal Repurchase Act could mark the start of a significant shift in how the U.S. approaches strategic infrastructure. Whether this effort succeeds or not, the debate underscores the importance of securing reliable trade routes and reducing vulnerabilities in an increasingly interconnected world.
Video summary generated with assistance from AI.
Two Storms, One Harvest
Every food crisis in living memory has been a one-shock event. The 2008 price spike was a commodity bubble. The 2020 shortages were a logistics failure. The 2022 grain scare was a war on one exporter’s ports. Each time, the system bent, adjusted, and recovered, and each time the experts assured us afterward that global markets are simply too big and too diversified to fail.
What nobody in Washington seems eager to discuss is that 2026 is shaping up to be something the modern food system has never actually faced. Two independent shocks, one climatic and one geopolitical, are converging on the same harvest cycle at the same time. Not sequentially. Simultaneously.
Start with the weather. The Pacific Ocean is currently building toward what forecasters now openly call a record event. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center puts the odds of at least a strong El Niño near 88 percent, with roughly two in three odds it reaches “very strong” status, the tier reserved for perhaps three or four events in the entire satellite era. Every major global model now projects a median peak in Super El Niño territory, and most of them project it exceeding the 2015-16 event, which until now held the modern record. Sea surface anomalies were already brushing the super threshold in mid-July, months before these events normally peak. The atmosphere has already shifted into El Niño mode, and the event is forecast to crest in late fall and early winter.
This is not about “climate change.” It’s about the standard cycles of weather, and the cycle we’re currently in is one that has likely devastated societies in the past. We’re better prepared as a society today, but not all Americans are equally prepared.
Serious households have started doing the quiet math on their own. Grocery bills tell part of the story, and the forecast maps tell the rest, which is why long-term food storage has moved from fringe hobby to mainstream line item in the family budget, with established suppliers like Heaven’s Harvest seeing demand from people who five years ago would have rolled their eyes at the idea. That instinct is not paranoia. It is pattern recognition, and the pattern is worth walking through carefully.
Editor’s Note: Heaven’s Harvest IS a sponsor, but the warnings of this article are real and would be written even if we didn’t have a survival food sponsor. With that said, those who take advantage of what they offer can use promo code “Patriot” for 15% off.
The Fertilizer Clock Is Already Running
While the Pacific warms, the second shock has been unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict with Iran turned the world’s most important energy chokepoint into a contested waterway, and the consequences reach far beyond the gas pump. Roughly a third of global fertilizer trade moves through Hormuz, and the disruption sent urea prices up 86 percent year over year by March, with a 53 percent jump in a single month.
The World Bank projects energy prices rising about 24 percent in 2026 and fertilizer about 31 percent. By its own accounting, fertilizer prices ran 35 percent higher in the first five months of this year than the same period last year.
Here is the mechanism the nightly news will not explain. Fertilizer is not a grocery item. It is a time-delayed input. The nitrogen a farmer in Iowa or Punjab could not afford to apply this spring does not show up as a problem this spring. It shows up as a thinner harvest six to twelve months later.
The World Bank’s own food security brief concedes that the effects of reduced applications earlier this season “are likely to become visible only later in harvest outcomes.” Translate that from institutional language into plain English and it means this. The damage is already done, it is already in the ground, and we are simply waiting for it to arrive on the shelf.
Now check the calendar. Six to twelve months from the spring planting season lands us squarely in late 2026 and early 2027. Which is precisely when the strongest El Niño in the instrumental record is forecast to peak, bringing its signature droughts to Southeast Asia, Australia, southern Africa, northern Brazil, and South Asia, the very regions that grow the world’s rice, sugar, and oilseeds.
The World Bank warns openly that a strong El Niño “could disrupt multiple crop belts simultaneously” on top of the conflict-driven input costs. Their baseline projection assumes the Middle East disruptions ease by autumn. What in the last two years of Middle East history suggests that assumption is safe?
The System Has No Slack Left
The comfortable answer is that global markets always adjust. But adjustment requires slack, and the slack is gone. Global cereal production is expected to decline from last year’s records even before El Niño does its work. The UN World Food Programme, hardly a den of right-wing preppers, is calling this the most significant disruption to its supply chains since Covid and the invasion of Ukraine, and its supply chain director put the stakes bluntly.
Today’s supply chain challenges are tomorrow’s hunger crisis.
There is also a political dimension that markets cannot price. When food gets scarce, governments do not behave like economists. They behave like politicians. Export bans, hoarding mandates, and panic buying at the national level turned the modest rice shortfall of 2008 into a global crisis, and analysts are already warning that import-dependent nations are the first dominoes.
The 2015-16 Super El Niño, a far weaker event than what is now forecast, threw tens of millions into food stress across Africa and Asia. This one is projected to be stronger, and it arrives with fertilizer already rationed by price and shipping lanes already contested by missiles.
What Joseph Knew
Scripture does not treat preparation for lean years as faithlessness. It treats it as wisdom delivered in advance to those willing to act on it.
Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt.
Joseph did not respond to that warning with a hashtag or a committee. He stored grain during the years of abundance, and when the famine came, Egypt stood while its neighbors begged. The lesson is not that famine is certain. It is that the time to prepare is precisely when preparation still looks optional.
Nobody who filled a pantry in a year of plenty has ever regretted it, and nobody standing in an empty aisle has ever been glad he waited for certainty.
None of this calls for panic, and panic is the enemy of sound judgment anyway. It calls for the same unglamorous prudence our grandparents considered ordinary. Keep some cash margin, know your local growers, and put real food in deep storage while it is cheap and available, because the entire arc of this story is that cheap and available is a closing window.
Families looking for a straightforward place to start can visit Heaven’s Harvest and use promo code Patriot for 15 percent off long-term storable food. The forecasts may yet soften, the strait may yet reopen, and we should pray they do. But hope is a fine thing to hold and a foolish thing to eat.
