You, as the former President, and the Man with the vision years earlier, are called upon to cut the ribbon opening the Panama Canal. The first US war ship passes through. The cost was enormous, in both money and human lives. Yellow fever acts quickly on an Army and may devastate it more than any enemy ever could. It will prevent troops from taking and holding territories.
Men die in just months after exposure.
It attacks the liver and gall bladder turning you yellow with jaundice. The current state of medicine does not allow a cure yet. The American century is at risk of never happening. Besides the only way to find a cure is to test humans. But science is advancing, and so are aggressive nations around the world.