opinion

Panama and Trump
by Marco A. Gandásegui, hijo

Recently a foreign journalist who was looking to ad to an article about the real estate “boom” in the Panamanian capital asked me to explain the phenomenon. While in the United States, Spain and other countries the real estate bubble burst 18 months or more ago, in Panama it's still going strong --- somewhat battered but still attractive for speculators.

His interest also turned around the Trump Ocean Club, a tower rising above the shore of the South Sea (that is, the Pacific Ocean), and which represents an enormous investment. Only the mention of Trump awakens anxieties among many entrepreneurs around the world. He's one of the most popular figures in the world of finance, who issues his pronouncements from high atop one of his towers in Manhattan. He dominates the newspaper pages in the USA, and has his own television program. In the midst of all this nonsensical activity, the star speculator finds time to add to his fortune of more than $1 billion.

The world press has almost made a religion of these neo-liberal projects. Despite the economic crisis, with 15 million jobless in the United States and no signs of recovery, the ideological message coming from Wall Street and Wal-Mart, the images that they have made of such persons and their projects still prevail over global reality.

Panama's real estate bubble is part of a new world that's found inside people's heads. Most people in Panama City are conscious of the increased construction (which has grown at a fast pace since 2005) but don't know its origin and don't understand what it means for the country's economy. The speculators and their partners in the government are making millions of dollars.

The local press manipulate the effects of the boom to play it up. The members of the business class, big and small, and its political parties, believe that speculative neo-liberalism is going to benefit them. Important sectors of the middle class and of the vast popular sectors believe that the new concrete skyline of Panama City gives us a better image.

However, the popular organizations composed of the unions, the teachers and the students, as well as professional associations and other interests, have denounced the destruction of the city's infrastructure and the lack of urban planning. The voices of protest tend to be drowned out by the mountains of cash that are being transferred within the framework of neo-liberal policies. The Trump Ocean Club is a good example that illustrates the chaotic situation in Panama City.

If you take a photo of the Trump building that's rising on Panama Bay, you will appreciate the conflicted surroundings and the multiple contradictions with which the neighbors must put up. The building is built on a dead-end street, on which one must make a tight U-turn to get in and out. This space is shared with a dozen other buildings of similar size. The area will be united with the eternal traffic jam that characterizes Panama City. Everything indicates that the designers of the Trump project didn't care to break with the city's chaotic logic. The construction of the Trump towers reflects the (planned?) disorder that characterizes the majority, if not all, of the skyscrapers that are going up in the new Panama City.

To see the story by that foreign reporter, click here.