As United States President Donald Trump was sworn in for his second term on Monday, he repeated his wishes to acquire the Panama Canal and rename the Gulf of Mexico in his inaugural speech.

Trump has spoken about the canal and the Gulf of Mexico previously. On Monday, he signalled he was serious about moving ahead with both those ideas – and soon.

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But as powerful as the US president is, can Trump really take over the Panama Canal and rename the Gulf of Mexico? And what would that involve?

‘Manifest Destiny’: What did Trump say during his inauguration?

During his inaugural address, Trump voiced dreams of American territorial expansion. While unfurling plans of space exploration, he invoked the 19th-century expansionist doctrine of “Manifest Destiny” which decrees that the US is destined to expand territorially.

“We are going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America,” he said, his ambitious tone punctuated with pauses to contain his excitement. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who Trump defeated in the 2016 election to first come to power, burst out laughing in the audience behind him as he finished the sentence.

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Trump lauded former US presidents including Republican William McKinley, who was president from 1897 to 1901. He also acknowledged former President Theodore Roosevelt Jr, the Republican who held office from 1901 to 1909. He issued an executive order for Alaskan Mount Denali to be renamed Mount McKinley after the former president. The mountain’s name was changed from McKinley to Denali by former Democrat President Barack Obama in 2015, reflecting the name that the Indigenous Alaskan people and residents have been using for the mountain.

To Roosevelt, he attributed the construction of the Panama Canal, a man-made waterway on the Panama Isthmus, linking the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean. The canal was built mostly by the US between 1904 and 1914, under Roosevelt’s supervision.

Trump said the canal had “foolishly been given to the country of Panama” by the US.

He added: “We have been treated very badly from this foolish gift that should have never been made, and Panama’s promise to us has been broken.

“Above all, China is operating the Panama Canal. And we didn’t give it to China. We gave it to Panama, and we’re taking it back.”

Trump has had a contentious history with Panama. In 2018, Trump had to surrender his name from the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Panama after a dispute with the majority hotel owner.

On Monday, Panama President Jose Raul Mulino rejected the claims Trump made in his inaugural address. “On behalf of the Republic of Panama and its people, I must reject in a comprehensive manner the words outlined by President Donald Trump regarding Panama and its canal, in his inaugural speech,” he said in a statement translated by news agencies. “There is no presence of any nation in the world that interferes with our administration.”

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Who owns the Panama Canal?

The government of Panama owns the 82km (51 mile) canal.

Panama was handed ownership of the canal on December 31, 1999, under a 1977 treaty signed by former US President Jimmy Carter and former Panamanian leader Omar Torrijos.

Under the treaty, the US government relinquished control of the canal by the year 2000. The treaty grants the US the authority to maintain and operate the canal. Ships from any country can traverse the canal. The treaty does not have a clause allowing the US to take over ownership of the canal.

The treaty decrees that the fees to transit the canal must be “just, reasonable, equitable, and consistent with international law”.

“The purpose of our deal and the spirit of our treaty has been totally violated. American ships are being severely overcharged and not treated fairly in any way, shape, or form. And that includes the United States Navy,” Trump said during the inaugural address.

In 2023, the Panama Canal was affected by drought conditions in Central America. Traffic traversing through the waterway has reduced by 29 percent in the past fiscal year. Between October 2023 and September 2024, 9,944 vessels traversed the canal, compared with 14,080 in the year prior.

Panama President Mulino said that the tariffs which have hiked the fee for the canal “are not set on a whim” in late December 2024, after Trump had first talked about acquiring the canal.

China does not own the canal. Although, CK Hutchison, a Hong Kong-based corporation, has run two of the canal’s ports, located on the Caribbean and Pacific entrances, since 1997. In his December statement, Mulino also said that China does not own the Panama Canal, and “every square metre of the Panama Canal and the surrounding area belongs to Panama and will continue belonging [to Panama]”.

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Can Trump take the Panama Canal?

An article published by Washington, DC-headquartered think tank Atlantic Council on Monday said one way Trump could “take back” the canal is by increasing US investment in it, and by investing in the businesses that directly and indirectly operate the canal.

Trump has not specified how he would go about taking the canal, but he has not ruled out the possible use of military or economic force for territorial expansion. He has also talked about wanting to acquire Greenland and Canada since he has been voted in.

The canal accounts for an estimated 2.5 percent of global sea trade and 40 percent of all US container traffic.

If Trump takes the Panama Canal, “that would be a breach of the UN Charter, the governing document that has framed international relations since the second world war,” according to Al Jazeera’s James Bays. This is because the canal is part of Panama, a sovereign country.

How many people died building the Panama Canal?

During his inauguration, Trump said the US “lost 38,000 lives in the building of the Panama Canal”.

In an August 2023 interview, Trump told conservative host Tucker Carlson, “So we built a thing called the Panama Canal.”

“We lost 35,000 people to the mosquito, you know, malaria. We lost 35,000 people building — we lost 35,000 people because of the mosquito. Vicious. They had to build under nets.”

In September 2023, the BBC fact checked this claim by speaking to Matthew Parker, author of Hell’s Gorge: The Battle to Build the Panama Canal. Parker said that lives were indeed lost during the construction of the canal to mosquito-borne diseases like malaria and yellow fever. He added that other diseases were also rampant, including typhoid, cholera and black water fever.

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In 1880, the French began excavating the canal, led by Ferdinand de Lesseps, who built the Suez Canal in Egypt. The French attempt lasted nine years until they went bankrupt.

When asked how many people died building the canal during the French attempt, Parker said, “the rough estimate is, something like 25,000”. He added that those who died not only included workers, but also engineers. He said this included engineers from France and workers from Jamaica, Central America and Columbia.

Parker said that during the US effort to build the canal, “Some 6,000 died, almost all of whom were from Barbados. Out of that 6,000, there were about 300 Americans who died.”

Can Trump rename the Gulf of Mexico?

Technically, yes, but the rest of the world would not have to go with Trump’s renaming of the gulf.

The Gulf of Mexico is bound by Cuba, eastern states in Mexico: Tamaulipas, Veracruz, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatan and Quintana Roo; and states on the Gulf Coast of the United States: Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.

There are no formal, international laws that decide what a common maritime space or a disputed territory is called universally. However, the International Hydrographic Bureau (IHB) standardises names and resolves conflicts.

In the US,  the US Board on Geographic Names oversees geographic nomenclature. The board’s website says that it “discourages name changes unless there is a compelling reason”.

In 2012, Mississippi state representative Steve Holland proposed a bill to rename parts of the Gulf, close to the US, as the Gulf of America. Holland later dismissed the bill as a joke, and the bill did not pass when it was referred to a committee.

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So while Trump could, theoretically, change the name of the Gulf of Mexico on official US documents, this does not need to be internationally accepted.

Are there other water bodies with disputed names?

Diplomatic tensions between neighbouring countries have led to long-running naming conflicts of maritime spaces.

Japan and Korea have feuded over what to call the sea flanked by the two countries. Tokyo calls it the Sea of Japan while Seoul insists on calling it the East Sea.

The naming for the South China Sea is also contested. The Philippines insists that parts of it should be called the West Philippine Sea while Vietnam prefers the East Sea.

What Iran calls the Persian Gulf is known as the Arabian Gulf by Arab nations.