Trump: Carter was a 'very fine' person but Panama Canal moves were 'a big mistake'

"It's a bad part of the Carter legacy," Trump said.

"He was a good man. I knew him a little bit, and he was a very fine person. But that was a big mistake."

"I thought [giving the canal back] was a terrible thing to do," Trump said.

When reporters pressed Trump on criticizing Carter on the day of his Washington wake, the president-elect said he was a "very fine person" but that his politics left something to be desired.

Trump has also sparred verbally with Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino about his plans for the canal.

However, more than a century ago, another Republican - Theodore Roosevelt - celebrated the way the United States spearheaded the canal project in part through some diplomatic maneuvering.

In the early 1900s, as the Colombian Senate balked at a treaty favoring U.S. control, Panama was in the process of declaring its independence from Bogota - and America quickly recognized the new nation and effectively circumvented the Colombians.

In 1903, President Roosevelt boasted of the accomplishment.

"Fortunately, the crisis came at a period when I could act unhampered [by Congress]. Accordingly, I took the Isthmus, started the canal and then left Congress not to debate the canal, but to debate me," he said. 

Trump's plans to retake the canal have earned him praise from otherwise regular critics.

Meghan McCain, daughter of the late Sen. John McCain - with whom Trump often sparred - backed the man she otherwise tends to critique.

"Trump is right about the Panama Canal. This is very personal - my dad was born in the Panama Canal Zone."

The late Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina also expressed reservations about canal negotiations in the 1970s.

Thurmond led 35 senators in crafting a resolution opposing what he called the surrender of U.S. sovereignty in the PCZ.

"Any loss of control of the Canal would be extremely detrimental to our vital interests, especially in Latin America. We should make it clear that U.S. vital interests there are not negotiable."

Carter's negotiations led to Panama taking full control of the canal by 1999. His other major diplomatic negotation - peace accords between Egypt and Israel - also remain intact today.