There’s a country in Latin America that’s not even as big as South Carolina, but on which the United States’ economy and national security depend: Panama.

拉丁美洲有一个国家，面积还不及一个南卡罗来纳州，但美国的经济和国家安全却依赖于它，那就是巴拿马。

Every year, 40 percent of all U.S. container traffic, valued at $270 billion, passes through the Panama Canal. So does an estimated 5 percent of all seaborne trade in the world. If conflict were to break out between China and Taiwan, the U.S. Navy would have to move submarines and other warships quickly to the Pacific through the canal.

每年，价值2700亿美元的美国集装箱运输量的40%要通过巴拿马运河。世界上大约5%的海运贸易也是如此。如果中国和台湾之间爆发冲突，美国海军将不得不通过运河迅速将潜艇和其他军舰转移到太平洋。

Since December, President Trump has mentioned Panama numerous times in speeches, interviews and on Truth Social, repeatedly threatening to “take back” the Panama Canal, which the United States controlled from 1914 to 1999. Since these expansionist demands started, he has extracted a growing list of concessions from Panama’s conservative president, José Raúl Mulino, including opening negotiations to compensate U.S. Navy vessels for fees they pay to use the canal and permitting U.S. military personnel to deploy to Panama-controlled bases throughout the country on a rotating basis. (The last permanent U.S. military base closed in 1999, a decade after the U.S. invasion of the country.)

去年12月以来，特朗普总统在演讲、采访和Truth Social中多次提到巴拿马，多次威胁要“收回”1914年至1999年由美国控制的巴拿马运河。自从提出这些扩张主义要求开始以来，他从巴拿马保守派总统何塞·劳尔·穆里诺那里得到了越来越多的让步，包括开始谈判补偿美国海军船只使用运河的费用、允许美国军事人员轮转部署到全国各地由巴拿马控制的基地。（美国最后一个永久性军事基地于1999年关闭，也就是美国入侵巴拿马10年后。）

Some of Mr. Trump’s demands are aimed at deterring China, which has gained commercial influence in Panama since the country broke ties with Taiwan in 2017. When Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited Panama in February, he told Mr. Mulino that Chinese influence on the canal was potentially in violation of a U.S.-Panama treaty. After speaking with Mr. Rubio, Mr. Mulino said Panama would exit China’s Belt and Road Initiative — a move that China said stemmed from U.S. “coercion.” Panama also audited two Chinese-controlled canal-side ports, following Mr. Trump’s accusations of Chinese interference in the canal.

特朗普的一些要求旨在威慑中国，自2017年巴拿马与台湾断交以来，中国在巴拿马获得了商业影响力。国务卿鲁比奥今年2月访问巴拿马时对穆利诺说，中国对运河的影响可能违反了美国与巴拿马签订的一项条约。在与鲁比奥交谈后，穆利诺表示巴拿马将退出中国的“一带一路”倡议——中国称此举源于美国的“胁迫”。在特朗普指责中国干涉运河之后，巴拿马还审计了中国控制的两个运河边港口。

Mr. Trump is not unreasonable to be concerned about growing Chinese influence in Panama, which had the Biden administration on high alert, too. But it isn’t clear what, if anything, Panama will receive in return for these concessions. And that’s making many Panamanians, already angry with their government and the country’s political class, even angrier.

特朗普担心中国在巴拿马日益增长的影响力并非没有道理，拜登政府也对巴拿马保持高度警惕。但目前尚不清楚巴拿马将从这些让步中得到什么回报（如果有的话）。这让许多已经对政府和国家政治阶层感到愤怒的巴拿马人更加愤怒。

Mr. Trump’s latest demand — which Mr. Mulino has rebuffed for now — is free passage for U.S. commercial vessels through the canal, an emblem of national pride and the source of roughly 7 to 10 percent of Panama’s annual government budget. Students, labor unions, environmentalists and Indigenous activists have held demonstrations across the nation, rallying against their government’s policies and a general sense, justified or not, that Mr. Mulino is caving to pressure from Mr. Trump, instead of defending Panamanian sovereignty.

特朗普的最新要求——穆利诺目前已经拒绝——是让美国商船免费通过巴拿马运河。巴拿马运河是国家自豪感的象征，也是巴拿马政府每年约7%至10%的财政预算的来源。学生、工会、环保人士和原住民活动人士在全国各地举行示威活动，反对政府的政策，不管合理与否，人们普遍的看法是，穆利诺是在向特朗普的压力屈服，而不是在捍卫巴拿马的主权。

Mr. Trump may not intend or realize it, but by pushing Mr. Mulino for repeated concessions, he is weakening an ally and rolling the dice on what comes next. A politically, economically and socially unstable Panama would be worrying for the United States. If it puts the canal at risk, it could lead to disaster.

通过迫使穆利诺一再让步，特朗普正在削弱一个盟友，导致一个不确定的未来——一个政治、经济和社会不稳定的巴拿马会让美国担忧，特朗普可能并非有意这样做，或者他还没意识到这一点。如果巴拿马运河岌岌可危，可能会导致一场灾难。

巴拿马运河大西洋一侧的阿瓜克拉拉船闸。

As a writer and researcher who has lived throughout Latin America, I never used to include Panama on my shortlist of countries that might erupt. From 1970 to 2019, it was the 16th fastest growing economy in the world in per capita terms. Poverty fell considerably during those years. Over the past decade, Latin America’s economies grew on average at a sluggish 0.9 percent per year; roughly around the same time period, Panama’s average yearly real gross domestic product growth more than quadrupled that rate. This was thanks to a boom in finance, construction, private investment and Panama’s professional management of the canal — which it modernized, expanded and administered apolitically in the years after 1999, when the United States handed over control. Among the beneficiaries were Panamanian and U.S. businesses, especially U.S. energy exporters, which took advantage of the canal’s doubled capacity to ship more liquid natural gas to Asia.

作为一个在拉丁美洲各地生活过的写作和研究者，我从来没有把巴拿马列入可能崩溃的国家名单。从1970年到2019年，按人均计算，巴拿马的经济增长速度位居世界第16位。在那些年里，贫困大大减少了。过去十年中，拉丁美洲的经济年均增长缓慢，仅为0.9%；大约在同一时期，巴拿马的年均实际国内生产总值增长率是这一水平的四倍多。这要归功于金融、建筑、私人投资的繁荣以及巴拿马对运河的专业管理——1999年美国移交控制权后，巴拿马对运河进行了现代化、扩建和去政治化的管理。巴拿马和美国的企业都是受益者，尤其是美国的能源出口商，在运河运力加倍后，他们得以向亚洲输送更多的液化天然气。

But within Panama, the benefits of all this growth were highly unequally distributed. In the 2000s and 2010s, the government routinely spent less on public education, as a percentage of G.D.P., than the Latin American average. Students performed worse on standardized tests than many regional peers, according to 2022 data. And a 2023 census reported that a full quarter of homes still lacked access to drinkable water 24 hours a day during Panama’s dry season. Also in 2023, the top-earning fifth of Panamanians received over half of the income in the country. Meanwhile, the bottom-earning fifth got just 3.5 percent. Within Latin America, Panamanians are among the most dissatisfied with democracy, political parties and public services.

但在巴拿马国内，所有这些增长所带来的利益分配极不均衡。21世纪的前20年，巴拿马政府在公共教育上的支出占GDP的比例通常低于拉丁美洲的平均水平。根据2022年的数据，学生在标准化考试中的表现比许多该地区的同龄人要差。2023年的一项人口普查报告显示，在巴拿马的旱季，整整四分之一的家庭仍然无法获得一天24小时的饮用水供应。同样在2023年，巴拿马收入最高的五分之一的人获得了该国一半以上的收入。与此同时，收入最低的五分之一只得到3.5%。在拉丁美洲，巴拿马人是对民主、政党和公共服务最不满的国家之一。

In October 2023, that frustration boiled over. Unions, public school teachers and protesters shut down major roads for 25 days over a copper mining contract, in the largest mass mobilization in decades. At the heart of the uprising was the widespread perception that the government habitually favored opaque private and foreign interests over ordinary people. During the protests, at least four people died. The demonstrations also cost Panama the equivalent of 2.3 percent of the previous year’s G.D.P.

2023年10月，这种不满情绪爆发了。因为一份铜矿开采合同，工会、公立学校教师和抗议者将主要道路关闭了25天，这是数十年来最大规模的群众动员。抗议活动的核心是人们普遍认为，政府习惯性地偏袒不透明的私人和外国利益，而不是普通民众。抗议活动中至少有四人死亡，给巴拿马造成的损失相当于前一年GDP的2.3%。

Now, that same sense of frustration risks overflowing — this time, inflamed not just by domestic grievances like corruption and inequality, but also by a sense that Mr. Mulino is prioritizing appeasement of Mr. Trump over Panama’s interests. In January, 51 percent of Panamanians thought the Mulino government was doing well, but by March, just 26 percent did. The discontent was palpable when I visited Panama several weeks ago. “Protests like those of 2023 could reignite with one gross act of injustice,” Alonso Illueca, a lawyer and academic, told me.

现在，同样的不满可能会蔓延——这一次，不仅是因为腐败和不平等等国内不满，还因为人们感觉穆里诺把讨好特朗普置于巴拿马利益之上。1月，51%的巴拿马人认为穆里诺政府做得很好，但到3月，只有26%的人这么认为。几周前我访问巴拿马时，不满是显而易见的。“像2023年那样的抗议活动可能会因为一次严重的不公正行为而重新点燃，”律师、学者阿隆索·伊卢利卡告诉我。

In March, Mr. Mulino passed a controversial law to increase employee contributions to the public pension system, which was quickly running out of cash. On April 23, several public school teachers’ unions and a large construction workers’ union started a strike, protesting the pension changes, moves to reopen a controversial copper mine, and the agreement Mr. Mulino made with the U.S. defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, to allow U.S. military personnel to position themselves on bases around the canal on a rotational basis.

3月，穆里诺通过了一项有争议的法律，增加雇员对现金即将枯竭的公共养老金体系的缴款。4月23日，几个公立学校教师工会和一个大型建筑工人工会开始罢工，抗议养老金改革、重开一个有争议的铜矿的举措，以及穆利诺与美国国防部长海格塞斯达成的协议，该协议允许美国军事人员在运河周围的基地轮转驻扎。

Two runners-up for the presidency, once rivals, joined civil society leaders for a press conference denouncing the deal with the United States. Then, in May, after Mr. Mulino implied the country’s largest public university was a den of terrorists, thousands of Panamanians, led by students, took to the streets in what appeared to be this wave of unrest’s biggest demonstration yet.

两位曾是对手的总统候选人同公民社会领袖一起召开新闻发布会，谴责与美国的协议。今年5月，在穆里诺暗示该国最大的公立大学是恐怖分子的巢穴之后，数以千计的巴拿马人在学生的带领下走上街头，这似乎是这波骚乱中规模最大的示威活动。

Now Mr. Mulino is facing calls from the private sector to take control of the streets and clear roadblocks of protesters, which have paralyzed the Bocas del Toro province. He’s pledged, “No matter the cost, this country will not be shut down.” But if the protests escalate and the government weakens further, Mr. Mulino won’t be as successful in addressing U.S. concerns on China or the canal’s water supply, whose susceptibility to climate change and drought have already at times decreased the traffic through the canal and raised costs for U.S. exporters.

现在，穆里诺面临着来自私营部门的呼吁，要求他控制街道，清除抗议者设置的路障，这些路障已使博卡斯德尔托罗省陷入瘫痪。他承诺，“无论付出什么代价，一定不会让这个国家陷入停摆。”但如果抗议活动升级，政府进一步被削弱，穆里诺在解决美国对中国或运河供水的担忧方面就不会那么成功了。气候变化和干旱对运河供水的影响已经导致通过运河的运输量时有下降，并提高了美国出口商的成本。

A weaker Mulino government is the most likely outcome if Mr. Trump and his administration continue to push hard — and publicly — for new concessions. On Wednesday, the U.S. ambassador to Panama visited the canal and posted on X that he would work to ensure the passage of U.S. government vessels for free. A quieter diplomatic approach would advance U.S. interests more effectively and with lower risk.

如果特朗普及其政府继续公开努力争取新的让步，最有可能的结果是削弱穆里诺政府。周三，美国驻巴拿马大使访问了巴拿马运河，并在X上发帖说，他将努力确保美国政府船只免费通行。更低调的外交手段将更有效地推进美国的利益，风险也更低。

Unfortunately, Mr. Trump has already learned that maximalist threats like “retaking the canal,” directed against a small country like Panama instead of Canada or Denmark, can actually work, even as the public’s mistrust of government deepens with each demand.

不幸的是，特朗普已经认识到，“夺回运河”这样的威胁，如果是针对巴拿马这样的小国而非加拿大或丹麦，实际上是可以奏效的——尽管公众对政府的不信任正随着每一次要挟的升级而不断加深。

If Mr. Trump wants to fully retake the canal and engage in a new era of U.S. territorial expansion, a destabilized Panamanian government plays in his favor. A serious bid to take back the canal — using tariffs, imposing sanctions or other tools to pressure the government into a handover — would ignite the country. For Panama, the United States and the world, that may be the ultimate risk.

如果特朗普想要完全夺回运河，进入美国领土扩张的新时代，一个不稳定的巴拿马政府会对他有利。如果真的着手收回运河——使用关税、制裁或其他手段迫使巴拿马政府政府交出运河——将点燃这个国家的怒火。对巴拿马、美国和世界来说，这可能才是最大的风险。