Gatun Locks
What would be the economic and social consequences if the Panama Canal was destroyed?
Say someone blew up one of the locks and ended up draining Lake Gatun. How long would it take to get it operational again and how much would it impact the west coast vs the east coast?
1. Canal traffic in 2008 consisted of over 300 million tons of shipping. Since the San Francisco - New York trip going through the Canal is less than half the distance going around the horn, a lot of shipping would have to spend a lot more time at sea. That means transportation costs would go up dramatically, and hence the prices of the goods transported And since shippers are willing to pay between $3 and $4 per ton as a toll, you can be sure the total shipping savings are well over $1 billion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Canal.
2. On the other hand, if, for some reason, the canal were to be destroyed, then it would not be economical to fix it. It would make much more sense to build a new canal in Nicaragua
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua_Canal
Of course, that's just the economics perspective. I can easily imagine a political response to terrorism being, "We must not bow down! We shall fix it!" And then there is the power the U.S. government has over the government of Panama and the lack of influence with the government of Nicaragua.
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