Welcome to the President's inbox. I'm Jim Lindsay, the Mary and David Boy's Distinguished Senior Fellow in U.S. foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. This week's topic is Trump's plan for the Panama Canal.

With me to discuss the Trump administration's policy toward Panama and the Panama Canal is Will Freeman. Will is a fellow for Latin America studies at the council.

His work focuses on the rule of law, on corruption organized crime in Latin America, and on

U.S. Latin America relations. His writings have appeared in Foreign Affairs, the New York Times,

and the Washington Post, among other outlets. He writes a monthly column for America's

Quarterly, where his most recent piece is titled, Securing the Panama Canal requires diplomacy.

Will, thank you very much for coming back on the president's inbox.

Thanks for having me.

Trump raised eyebrows late last year, Will, when you began talking about the United States,

taking back the Panama Canal, a point he reiterated in his inaugural address in January.

We'll get to what Trump has done or not done on the canal since taking office, but I'd like to

start with some background. We know the United States built the canal more than a century ago

and handed sovereignty over to Panama in 1999 based on two treaties signed and authorized during

Jimmy Carter's presidency. What else is worth knowing about the canal to understand the present

controversy? Yeah, well, I think, you know, first it's just critical to underscore how important

the canal is to global trade and to the U.S. economy. Every year, the canal handles 5% of all global maritime trade, nearly 75% of the flows, commercial flows through the canal are going to or from U.S. ports, and 40% of all U.S. container traffic, including a big share of our energy exports to Asia,

go through the canal each year. So if the canal were to, you know, suddenly go offline,

it would be majorly disruptive not only to world trade, but especially to the U.S. economy.

What's also important to know is that in the now more than 20 years in which Panama has

exclusively operated the canal, it's expanded a lot. They've made big investments. They've

increased its width in certain places, the number of ships that can pass through daily.

And that's made it, you know, both more and more important to different industries, including,

...