In just nine short months, the Panama Canal will be transferred to Panama in accordance with the Carter-Torrijos Treaty. Does the Canal have any strategic value? Should Americans really have any concern about the future?

Many people in the United States still do not want the United States to surrender the Panama Canal, Carter-Torrijos Treaty or not. As the December 31, 1999 transfer date approaches, there is little doubt that questions about the transfer will become louder and asked more often.

Whether you accept the argument that there are strategic military interests in Panama or not, there is little doubt about the critical importance the Panama Canal has with regard to the economy of the United States. Each year some 13,000 vessels transit the Canal with 200 million long tons of cargo. From the ports of Baton Rouge and New Orleans to New York, the established patterns of Canal traffic sustain hundreds of thousands of jobs in coastal cities across America. Interestingly, breadbasket grain represents some 23 percent of all Canal traffic. The Canal provides an economically viable and competitive way to reach the markets of Asia and the Pacific for US grain.

In addition to grain, other exports regularly shipped through the Canal from the United States include phosphates, petroleum products, chemicals, lumber, iron and steel. Major imports include fruit, ores and automobiles. Those who argue that alternatives to the Canal offer competition which will make the waterway less important miss changes taking place in the transport of materials by ships.

It is true that the intermodal railroad system has taken traffic away from the Canal. Some freight, from Japan and Asia, which had traditionally followed a pattern through the Isthmus on the way to Gulf and East Coast ports in the United States, now goes to Los Angeles by container ships and reaches eastern seaboard destinations on double stack container trains by the time the same ship could have traveled to Panama. Time-sensitive freight, capable of being shipped in containers, still continue to use the intermodal system. But, containers account for almost 14 percent of Canal transits and that number is growing.

The complete success of expanded hemispheric trade will rely heavily on the free flow of shipping through the Panama Canal. There is little doubt that the expanding trade interests of Central and South America will cause the countries of the region to demand that the Panama Canal continue to function as a world class waterway beyond 2000. As a result, Latin America's traditional, nationalistic attitudes against the North American "gringos" will subside and the realism of the Panama Canal's choke point collision with trade interests will become paramount. The United States will not be a lone voice with regard to the future of the Canal. Trade factors are aligning our well-being with the balance of the Western Hemisphere.