Treaties gave the U.S. perpetual sovereign rights over the Panama Canal Zone

Evidence

In 1903, the same year U.S. officials secured access to Guantánamo Bay, they did much the same in Panama. A treaty imposed on the newly independent country gave the United States what amounted to sovereign rights in perpetuity across 553 square miles that became the Panama Canal Zone. The treaty also authorized other extensive powers, including land expropriation outside the Canal Zone and the authority to build bases. Panama would eventually host fourteen. As in Cuba, Panama’s constitution allowed the United States to intervene militarily, and between 1856 and 1989, the U.S. military invaded twenty-four times. With prominent U.S. bases occupying their land and enabling easy intervention, Panama and Cuba were effectively colonies. — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 72

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the Guantánamo perpetual-lease pattern from paragraph 68; a recurring colonial legal device worth tracking across the book.