Can U.S. Fix Its Own Mistakes, As It Has in The Past?

By Shinichi Kitaoka / Special to The Yomiuri Shimbun

11:00 JST, August 8, 2025

The Panama Canal opened more than a century ago, in 1914. Prior to its opening, a controversy arose between Great Britain and the United States over the tolls for the canal.

The Hay-Pauncefote Treaty signed by the two countries in 1901 had a clause promising that the tolls would not discriminate by nationality, but the U.S. Congress created a new system to make domestic shipping fares lower than those for international shipping. Its aim was to offer significantly reduced canal tolls to U.S. vessels.

The system would define U.S. ships sailing from the nation’s east coast to the west coast, for example, as being domestic shipping, making them eligible for discounted tolls. The United States maintained that the measure was not discrimination but a distinction between domestic and international shipping. It was clearly discriminatory, however, since the discount was effectively only available to U.S. ships.

The United Kingdom strongly protested this sophistry. The U.K. ambassador to Washington at the time was James Bryce (1838-1922), whose book titled “The American Commonwealth” had been highly praised, especially in the United States, alongside French political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville’s “De la democratie en Amerique” (Democracy in America). Despite Bryce’s already advanced age, the U.K. government appointed him to the ambassadorial post because friendly relations with the United States were of critical importance for the United Kingdom, due to its conflict with Germany.

The U.S. Congress eventually voted the bill on discounted canal tolls into law. Around that time, younger Japanese diplomat Kijuro Shidehara — who later served as Japan’s ambassador to the United States (1919-22), foreign minister (1924-27, 1929-31) and as prime minister (1945-46) — met Bryce and asked what the United Kingdom would do now about the issue of the tolls. The British envoy said his country would do nothing.

Shidehara asked why, given that the U.S. policy was terrible and the United Kingdom had protested vehemently. Bryce explained that the United States was a country that did not change even when criticized but was always able to realize its mistakes and correct them on its own. Relations with the United States were so vital for the United Kingdom that there was no point in continuing to protest, he added.

Touching on a bilateral issue between Japan and the United States regarding Japanese immigrants, Bryce said Japan had better stop lodging protests with Washington. He argued that the United States would eventually realize its mistakes and correct itself.

Several years later, Shidehara met Bryce again. By that time, the U.S. Congress had changed its position regarding the Panama Canal’s tolls and resolved the matter. Bringing up that policy reversal, Shidehara said things turned out just as Bryce said. However, Shidehara added, Japan saw no end in sight at all for the issue of Japanese immigrants in the United States.

Bryce was said to have advised Shidehara not to think of the destiny of a nation in a framework of 10 or 20 years, as its destiny was eternal.

A particular trait of U.S. diplomacy

I’ve described this old story at length because in my view, it well illustrates a particular characteristic of U.S. diplomacy. Today, the world is bewildered by the policies brought out one after another by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump — many of them are dubious in terms of their effectiveness. Trump’s tariff initiatives are causing turmoil among nations friendly to the United States, and they are not likely to benefit his support base either.

In contrast, countries like China and Russia with abundant natural resources and vast land areas may be better positioned to counter Trump’s policies and suffer less damage.

Even if someone tries to tell Trump that his policies are not beneficial, either for the United States itself or for other liberal countries, he won’t listen. U.S. leaders typically think about how their policies will affect U.S. interests and their own popularity — no more, no less.

Some of them have occasionally said U.S. policies are good for the world, but that is a secondary or tertiary issue.

Given its vast land area, abundant natural resources and a large population, the United States can get by quite well even if it chooses to ignore the interests of related and friendly countries. This is what U.S. isolationism means.

I taught at Stanford University in California for one semester from April to July this year, an opportunity for me to gain firsthand experience of the remarkable development of that region and Silicon Valley.This region was part of Mexico until 1848. Texas was also part of Mexico, but before that it had been the territory of Native Americans. As more settlers came from the United States, Texas declared independence in 1836 and was annexed by the United States in 1845.

Mexico was so disgruntled by this annexation that it went to war with the United States, only to cede a vast territory ranging from present-day California to Arizona to New Mexico. Around that time, the young Abraham Lincoln called the war unconstitutional, but his protest met with little response.

Around the same time that the Mexican-American War came to an end, gold was discovered in Northern California, unleashing a massive wave of migration of people who dreamed of getting rich quick and contributing to the rapid development of California.

Settlers’ westward expansion in North America was justified by the phrase “manifest destiny.” This means that the development of Stanford University and Silicon Valley was based on an illegal, unjust war. Many Americans probably think that as long as the results are good, there’s no problem.

Trump’s behavior is very similar to what was prevalent back then. He’s said that Canada should be a U.S. state and that he wants to purchase Greenland. He’s demanded the reversion of the Panama Canal.

The United States decided at one point to construct the Panama Canal on its own. However, when negotiations with Colombia for the right to build a canal hit a snag, the United States began inciting independence movements in the Panama area. This led to Panama’s secession from Colombia in 1903, and the U.S. finally built the canal under an agreement with Panama.

When Trump delivered his inaugural address at the start of his second administration, he became the first sitting U.S. president to use the phrase “manifest destiny.”

Enhance international cooperation

His policies harm liberal countries. They have neither vast territories nor abundant resources like China and Russia — their ability to counter the United States is weak. In this way, the United States continues to destroy its own greatest appeal — its free and open institutions. It is unlikely that Trump’s policies will make the United States happy.

However, no matter how often he is told that he is wrong, he will not listen. Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told me that Trump had not known about the Russo-Japanese War.

This may not be particularly surprising, but it means the United States has a president with no understanding at all of the complexities of international relations in Northeast Asia. It’s unrealistic to expect that an appropriate security policy could be established for Northeast Asia under a president who lacked a fundamental understanding of the pertaining matters.

Only the American people can put the brakes on Trump’s mistakes. In particular, things may change if the markets begin to clearly show danger signs.

The United States may one day change its stance, but it is unclear how long that will take. Past examples show that it took 25 years for the United Nations to be established in 1945 after the United States refused in 1920 to join the League of Nations, the creation of which it had called for itself. It took 13 years to revise Prohibition, a bad law. This time around, it may not take that long. Will things change in the next midterm elections in 2026 or presidential election in 2028, or further in the future?

The United States is such a superpower, it will survive and start over even if mistakes are made. But many other countries will face major difficulties once they lose such principles as free trade and the rule of law. Such a situation creates an opportunity for totalitarian countries like China to take advantage. To prevent this from happening, Japan and other nations that respect freedom and democracy have to significantly strengthen their cooperation and rebuild the system of international coordination.

Shinichi Kitaoka

Shinichi Kitaoka is a professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo specializing in Japanese political and diplomatic history. His previous posts have included Japanese ambassador to the United Nations in 2004-06 and president of the Japan International Cooperation Agency in 2015-22.

The original article in Japanese appeared in the Aug. 3 issue of The Yomiuri Shimbun.