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President-elect Donald Trump surprised many earlier this month when at a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, he declined to assure the public that he would not use military coercion against Panama.
Trump suggested later he would consider using military force to gain (or regain control of the Panama Canal.

He claimed that the U.S. is charged higher rates for its ships to sail the canal than those of other countries, and that Panama is in violation of a deal with the U.S. He said, “China is basically taking it over.” He threatened to try to take it back, saying that returning it to U.S. control is vital to the the national security of the U.S.
While it is not clear what deal Trump was referring to, under the terms of a Jimmy Carter administration treaty that transferred control of the canal from the U.S. to Panama by 1999, the United States would hold the right to defend the canal from any change to its neutrality.
Today’s attention to Panama and the Panama Canal would not surprise Carter Wrenn, a former protégée of the late Sen. Jesse Helms. Wrenn devotes much of his new book, “The Trail of the Serpent: Stories from the Smoke-Filled Rooms of Politics,” to Helms’ use of the Panama Canal issue to fight his Republican rivals in the 1976 and1980 presidential primary elections.
In 1976, Helms and Wrenn supported former California Gov. Ronald Reagan, who was against any change in U.S. control of the Canal.
Reagan’s opponent was the then current President Gerald Ford, who favored the agreement to transfer the Canal to Panama.
When Arthur stared at his last poll his eyes locked on one number: 92% of the voters opposed giving away the Panama Canal. He sat for a moment looked up at Tom Ellis (Helms’ trusted political partner) and said “Hit Ford for the Panama Canal giveaway — don’t say a word about anything else for the last five days.”
Four years later, the Democrats then in control of Congress’ gave up the Panama Canal, they lost the Senate, but a week before our primary no one had heard the words “Panama Canal giveaway” in a campaign; none of us knew it then but Arthur had found the issue that wreaked havoc on Gerald Ford — fear drove that river and grim-faced men and women saw the Panama Canal giveaway as The heart of weakness.
When asked where the title of his book came from Wrenn replied: “There is a poem by Irish poet Thomas Moore – it includes a line, ‘Some flow’rets of Eden ye still inherit, but the trail of the Serpent is over them all.’ That’s where the line came from. It’s at the front of the book, before the table of contents. And I mentioned it once more on the last page of the last chapter. Basically, I wrote about ‘the trail of the serpent’ — the devil — and ‘the flowers of Eden’ across 50 years of politics.”

D.G. Martin, a retired lawyer, served as UNC-System’s vice president for public affairs and hosted PBS-NC’s “North Carolina Bookwatch.”