Panama Canal
Colombia, France, and later the United States controlled the territory surrounding the canal during construction. The US continued to control the canal and surrounding Panama Canal Zone until the 1977 Torrijos–Carter Treaties provided for handover to Panama. After a period of joint American–Panamanian control, in 1999, the canal was taken over by the Panamanian government. It is now managed and operated by the government-owned Panama Canal Authority.
History of Panama
According to the treaty, the US was to pay $40,000,000 to the stockholders of the French company that had tried to build the canal across Panama. Colombia's rejection of the treaty confronted these French investors with the prospect of losing everything. At this point, the French company's chief lobbyist (and a major stockholder), Philippe Bunau-Varilla went into action. Justly confident that the Roosevelt administration would support his initiative, he met with Manuel Amador, the leader of the Panamanian Independence movement, in a suite in the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York where he wrote him a $100,000 check to fund a renewed Panamanian revolt. In return, Bunau-Varilla would become Panama's representative in Washington.