(A) encourage development of the trucking industry
(B) provide greater employment in Latin America
(C) ** shorten the Atlantic-Pacific shipping route
(D) eliminate the need for railroads in the United States
EXPLANATIONS BELOW
Concept note-1: -President Theodore Roosevelt oversaw the realization of a long-term United States goal-a trans-isthmian canal. Throughout the 1800s, American and British leaders and businessmen wanted to ship goods quickly and cheaply between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.
Concept note-2: -In the late 1890s Bunau-Varilla began lobbying American lawmakers to buy the French canal assets in Panama, and eventually convinced a number of them that Nicaragua had dangerous volcanoes, making Panama the safer choice.
Concept note-3: -Ships sailing between the east and west coasts of the United States, which otherwise would be obliged to round Cape Horn in South America, shorten their voyage by about 8, 000 nautical miles (15, 000 km) by using the canal.
Concept note-4: -More than a century ago, the opening of the Panama Canal revolutionized international trade by making it much quicker and easier to travel between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.