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The Americans came on the scene:

(The Washington Post On Theodore Roosevelt:) "He has at all times been far too theatrical for our taste."
Alfred T. Mahan.'s world-shaking Influence of Sea Power upon History... was published in 1890. He had arrived at the extremely simple theory that national greatness and commercial supremacy were directly related to supremacy at sea... Like so many such iron-willed theorists, he had a knack for making his case so that it seemed indisputable.
"It is sea power which is essential to every splendid people," Lodge lectured the nation from the Senate floor.
The canal was the thing to bestir "the aggressive impulse," and turn the American people from their "peaceful gainsaying" ways... With the isthmian barrier broken, the Caribbean would become not simply a prime commercial crossroads, but a vital military highway.
"I curled up on the seat opposite," said Kipling, "and listened and wondered, until the universe seemed to be spinning round and Theodore (R) was the spinner."
Mahan wrote, "if the love of mere glory is selfish, it is not quite so low as the love of mere comfort."
In the Senate, (John Tyler) Morgan noted that England had once done everything short of war to prevent the canal at Suez, but then took it over after the work was completed. Allegedly this could again be the intent.
... such "Lords of Creation" as H. H. Rogers, W. K. Vanderbilt, and John "Bet-a-Million" Gates.

Spoilers:

By playing up Panama (the railroads) hoped to stall a congressional decision on Nicaragua.
"Talk about buying a lawsuit," wrote William Randolph Hearst, "the purchase of the Panama Canal would be buying a revolution."

"The Path Between the Seas"