The U.S. acquired the rights to build and operate the canal in the early 20th century, but at the time, Panama was in the process of seceding from Colombia, whose senate was refusing to ratify a treaty that would allow the canal to be built, according to the State Department's Office of the Historian .

President-elect Donald Trump has named a Florida lawmaker to be his ambassador to Panama, days after he threatened to take back the Panama Canal. Kevin Marino Cabrera, a Republican commissioner in Miami-Dade County,