Question

(BRAINLIEST QUESTION) Why did President Theodore Roosevelt feel that building the Panama Canal had become a military necessity for the United States?
Relations between the United States and Mexico had deteriorated and a canal would allow the US Navy to enforce a blockade of Mexico

The Panama Canal could be fortified and used as a defense against an invasion from South America into Central America.

The US acquisition of Guam, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico meant the US Navy would need to defend territories in both oceans.

There were no shipyards on the west coast of the United States, so the canal was needed to move warships to the Pacific Ocean.

Answer 1

Answer: The US acquisition of Guam, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico meant the US Navy would need to defend territories in both oceans.

Explanation:

The United States was a huge country with coastlines on both the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans and then as a result of the Spanish American war, gained territories in the Pacific being Guam, Philippians and Hawaii as well as Puerto Rico in the Atlantic.

The US therefore needed a way to move their military resources from one coast to the other to defend these territories, coastlines and exert American control over both oceans. The solution was the Panama canal and so the US built it through Gun-boat diplomacy.