The Panama Canal, along with other locations like the Suez Canal, the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, and the Strait of Malacca is what's called a chokepoint, a narrow, easily blocked waterway which, when blocked, causes big trouble for shipping, both military and commercial.
Throughout history, the strategic importance of chokepoints has been realized, and even blockaded. With the advent of the theories espoused by Alfred Thayer Mahan and the coming of age of the US Navy as a world power under President Theodore Roosevelt a new chokepoint was added to the list: The Panama Canal.
Of course, the importance of the canal was immediately apparent. In 1929, Admiral Joseph Reeves conducted the first recorded US Navy air strike on a land target. It was an exercise, but it was deemed spectacularly successful, completely surprising the defending forces and "destroying" it before even one plane was in the air to oppose the attackers. The judges of the exercise ruled that Miraflores Lock was completely destroyed, effectively shutting down the canal. If that actually happened, ships would be forced to travel around South America, adding over a month of travel time in some cases to reach their destinations. This happened over a decade before Pearl Harbor. The Japanese learned more from the exercise than the Americans did, apparently.
At any rate, the Panama Canal itself if still vital to US economic and military interests in the Americas. As I said, most US Navy ships that transit the canal now are engaged on the war on drugs. Millions, perhaps billions, of dollars of commerce flow through the canal every year. Keeping it open and free for transit is obviously in our best interest as a nation. Don't think that our sole interest in the Caribbean is stopping the flow of drugs into the States. We're here showing the flag and demonstrating our power. Also don't think for a moment that, should it be deemed by national authority to be in our best interest, we'll intervene in the affairs of one of these little countries down here (think Panama itself in 1989).
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