Was making the panama canal a good thing for the US? what did the US get out of the canal?

Question

Was making the panama canal a good thing for the US? what did the US get out of the canal?

Answer 1

The US got a lot out of the Panama Canal. It was able to deploy thousands of military personel in the area, it built many military bases from which it could monitor all sorts of activity in central and south america and the caribbean. What a better place that the very middle of it?

It got a LOT of money out of the operation of the canal. It helped the US deploy its forces in the times of war.

Had it not been beneficial then there wouldn't be a group of people in the US government wanting the canal back.

If it had not been beneficial the current Panama Canal Treaty would not have a clausule indicating that the US can seize control of the canal at any given time should they deem it necessary.

And last but not least, the US never does anything out of the kindness of their hearts LOL. There are always interests even if it is not oil. The "Let us bring democracy to this poor land" is usually a facade for a other interests.

Answer 2

Yes it was a good thing for the US.  At first the main purpose of the Panama Canal was military.  The US Navy at that time used it so it could keep only one fleet.  In that case when they needed ships on the Pacific they could transit the canal.

Associated to it then came the commercial use of the canal, which basically had no major importance to the US, as the Canal was always ran as a military asset.  Most people don't know this, but the office of the old Panama Canal Commission was at the Pentagon, not at the State Department as many thought.  In fact there's more than enough proof that most of the funds that the canal earned from the commercial transits of the canal (that obviously became it's mainstay) were used to run the Canal, so it wasn't a cash cow for the US Government.

The US got the opportunity to cross from the Atlantic to the Pacific using less time than going all the way around the southern tip of South America.

Also as the other user pointed out the US was granted the use of the Canal Zone that enabled the US military to put up bases that were used to monitor military activities around Latin America.

They also got to control the spread of communism as the presence in Panama always was considered as a show of force.