The building of the Panama Canal by the US in 1914 proved definitively the ascent of the US to regional hegemony. Shortly after, World War I would lead the US to global primacy. The canal was much more than the construction of a shipping route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans; it meant that America was a power capable of and willing to reshaping the Western Hemisphere in its way to becoming a world power.A century later –in 2014- China announced it would begin a similar enterprise in Nicaragua. What are the geopolitical implications for Latin America? Is this signaling a more assertive Chinese foreign policy seeking –by ambition or by necessity– to challenge the US in the Western Hemisphere? Is this geographic reshaping also politically reflecting the emergence of a world power?