Torrijos-Carter Treaties

The Torrijos-Carter Treaties were the pair of agreements negotiated between the United States and Panama in the 1970s that gave Panama eventual control of the Panama Canal. They are named for Omar Torrijos, whose 1968 coup put him at the head of the Panamanian government, and President Jimmy Carter. They replaced the arrangement set by the 1903 Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty, which had given the United States permanent rights to a Panama Canal Zone, and which many Panamanians questioned. The Treaty Concerning the Permanent Neutrality and Operation of the Panama Canal, called the Neutrality Treaty, allowed the United States to defend the canal against any threat to its neutrality and so secured perpetual use of it. The Panama Canal Treaty provided that the Canal Zone would cease to exist on 1 October 1979 and that the canal itself would pass to Panama on 31 December 1999. Both were signed on 7 September 1977. The United States Senate consented to the Neutrality Treaty on 16 March 1978 and to the Panama Canal Treaty on 18 April 1978, each by 68 votes to 32, and President Carter signed the implementing legislation on 27 September 1979. The canal was turned over to Panama in 1999.