Not true. Panamanian businessmen were miffed. They wanted to sell hundred dollar shovels. Read “Path between the Seas.”. Great book. Reads like a novel.
I have read it and have spent a lot of time in and around it.
Initially, there were some Panamanian suppliers who wanted to try and operate some commissaries for the non-American workforce. They did such a lousy job we booted them.
On the construction side, they had nothing we wanted and we wouldn’t have trusted them to deliver on anything.