Panama has owned and administered the Panama Canal for nearly three decades. President Trump wants to change that to counter growing Chinese influence in Latin America.

During Monday’s inauguration, Donald Trump repeated his threat to retake the Panama Canal. The United States controlled the waterway since the early 20th century, but in 1977 President Jimmy Carter signed a landmark treaty to give Panama control of the canal.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s insistence that he wants to have the Panama Canal back under U.S. control is feeding nationalist sentiment and worry in Panama, home to the critical trade route and a country familiar with U.

Here’s where Kansas and Missouri come into play: On Thursday, The Washington Post reported that Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt will introduce a resolution backing Trump’s plan. And Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall is a co-sponsor. “This is an opportunity, I think, for Panama to do the right thing,” Schmitt told The Post.

They say they fought too hard to wrest it from the U.S. to now hand back the waterway, which is part of the nation’s identity.

The neutrality of the nearly 50-mile canal, through which nearly 15,000 ships transit each year, is enshrined in Panama’s Constitution and is enforced by the autonomous Panama Canal Authority.

Republicans hoping to thwart Beijing’s influence in Latin America are urging the Panamanian government to cut ties with Chinese entities.

The president who built his fan base on isolationism is pivoting to a kind of imperialism that the U.S. hasn’t seen in decades.

President Trump’s push to take back control of the strategic waterway stokes memories of a period of U.S. imperial ambition and violence.

Donald Trump is back in the White House, and he started his term with the announcing a series of sweeping measures that he says are going to take to "make America great again." He reiterated his interest in "taking back" the Panama Canal in Central America.