With the Panama Canal as the principal trade route between the U.S. East Coast and Asia, few countries in the Americas are as strategic to the U.S. economy as Panama. As Panama reached high levels of both per capita income and human development in the 2000s, it was critical for the U.S. Agency for InternationalDevelopment (USAID) to successfully transitionPanama to a broader partnership with theUnited States, which was achieved in 2012.
