WI America chose to invest in a Nicaraguan Canal instead of a Panaman Canal?

What would be the effects for Panama, Colombia and Nicaragua? Would we see a more US friendly Nicaragua? Or perhaps a Colombian built Panama Canal.
 
It would be ideal for two canals to be in Central America, although Colombia doesn't have the know-how or money to build a canal without Britain or France or another great power.

But since the Nicaragua Canal runs through the main areas of Nicaragua's population, you can't just cordon it off with a Panama Canal Zone solution. You need a lot more control in Nicaragua than the US had OTL. And that possibly means annexing parts of Central America as a US territory. This isn't a new idea, considering William Walker and the later Banana Wars, but it gives the United States a significant colonial realm as well as the challenges/expenses of ruling it.
 
But since the Nicaragua Canal runs through the main areas of Nicaragua's population, you can't just cordon it off with a Panama Canal Zone solution. You need a lot more control in Nicaragua than the US had OTL. And that possibly means annexing parts of Central America as a US territory. This isn't a new idea, considering William Walker and the later Banana Wars, but it gives the United States a significant colonial realm as well as the challenges/expenses of ruling it.

So should we expect an annexed Nicaragua? If not, what areas in Central America should we expect the US to annex?
 
So, it is just to laugh at the idea that the USA might simply draw up a treaty of cooperation with Nicaragua? One leaving the Canal sovereign Nicaraguan territory and the operation of the canal by mostly US citizens (with a program to train up Nicaraguan citizens to make the personnel eventually 50-50)? USA has absolute rights in wartime, Nicaragua and USA are in a treaty of perpetual alliance anyway so US war = Nicaraguan war, revenues are split 50-50 except the USA gets a surcharge to pay off the capital invested in the canal--once paid off the split is even perpetually?

In short, can't we contemplate the idea of the USA treating Nicaragua as a sovereign equal?

(Looks at OTL history, Walker, Sandino versus the Somozas, contemplates Woodrow Wilson's attitudes. Shudders, sighs).

OK then, I suppose there is still an alternative outright colonization, and that what we did OTL anyway--pick a bunch of greedy thugs who will brutalize their country for pay, send in the Marines to make sure our sons of bitches get on top and their leader elected President for Life with emergency powers decree, and station some Marines in Managua convenient to the Presidential Palace on a permanent basis. Then build the canal with a pretty treaty about equal sovereignty and perpetual alliance and such words as I recommended above having been happily signed.

Nicaragua is a sovereign nation, it says so right in their Constitution! Therefore there is no Canal Zone or the like; all of Nicaragua welcomes their Yankee friends, wherever they might want to go! All but the lawless Sandinistas anyway...all glory to the USA's friend and Eagle of our Nation, the Great Somoza!
 
So, it is just to laugh at the idea that the USA might simply draw up a treaty of cooperation with Nicaragua? One leaving the Canal sovereign Nicaraguan territory and the operation of the canal by mostly US citizens (with a program to train up Nicaraguan citizens to make the personnel eventually 50-50)? USA has absolute rights in wartime, Nicaragua and USA are in a treaty of perpetual alliance anyway so US war = Nicaraguan war, revenues are split 50-50 except the USA gets a surcharge to pay off the capital invested in the canal--once paid off the split is even perpetually?

In short, can't we contemplate the idea of the USA treating Nicaragua as a sovereign equal?

(Looks at OTL history, Walker, Sandino versus the Somozas, contemplates Woodrow Wilson's attitudes. Shudders, sighs).

OK then, I suppose there is still an alternative outright colonization, and that what we did OTL anyway--pick a bunch of greedy thugs who will brutalize their country for pay, send in the Marines to make sure our sons of bitches get on top and their leader elected President for Life with emergency powers decree, and station some Marines in Managua convenient to the Presidential Palace on a permanent basis. Then build the canal with a pretty treaty about equal sovereignty and perpetual alliance and such words as I recommended above having been happily signed.

Nicaragua is a sovereign nation, it says so right in their Constitution! Therefore there is no Canal Zone or the like; all of Nicaragua welcomes their Yankee friends, wherever they might want to go! All but the lawless Sandinistas anyway...all glory to the USA's friend and Eagle of our Nation, the Great Somoza!


Yup, basically we see a Nicaragua that is only internally independent
 
Top