President Clinton will be absent from the ceremony today for the handing over of the Panama Canal after almost a century of US control.
The Panama government has expressed disappointment that there will be no high-level US representation. Former president Jimmy Carter, who negotiated the 1977 treaty ceding the canal to Panama, will be present, however, as well as several members of the Clinton cabinet.
Mr Clinton turned down an invitation, and Vice-President Al Gore is on the campaign trail. The US Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, was going to represent the US but cancelled so that she could be present in Washington for the opening of the Israel-Syria peace talks.
The low-key US presence is being contrasted with the glittering ceremonies which accompanied the British handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997 attended by Prince Charles and the Prime Minister, Mr Blair. King Juan Carlos of Spain and President Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico are expected to attend today's ceremony which had been brought forward from the end of the year to make it easier for high-level US dignitaries to attend.
The unwillingness of Mr Clinton to be present is seen as due to fears that this could damage Mr Gore's presidential campaign. The decision to cede the canal is still being criticised by conservatives as a danger to US security and is believed to have cost the Democrats seats in the 1976 election.
Republican critics allege that China will now get control of the canal because a Hong Kong company, Hutchison Whampoa, has won the contract to manage the ports at the Atlantic and Pacific ends.
But Mr Clinton has rejected this criticism, pointing out that Panama itself will have full responsibility for the running of the 80km waterway which halves the sea journey from the east to the west coast of the US.
Under the cession treaty, the US retains the right to intervene if the security of the canal is threatened, and US naval ships can claim priority to use the canal in an emergency.
Most of the 65,000 US troops have already been withdrawn from the 20-mile-wide canal zone which was used for jungle training and as a centre to combat drug-trafficking from neighbouring Colombia. Efforts to negotiate a smaller US military presence after 2000 failed.
The canal was completed in 1914 ahead of schedule, but more than 5,000 workers, mainly from Caribbean countries, died from disease and injuries.