Philippe Bunau-Varilla worked as a senior engineer on Ferdinand de Lesseps's failed French canal project in Panama during the 1880s and subsequently promoted the Panama route over a rival Nicaragua route to American decision-makers, with a financial stake in the French company's remaining assets. During the November 1903 secession crisis he helped finance and encourage the Panamanian separatists, and the new Panamanian government, without consulting local negotiators, appointed him minister plenipotentiary to Washington. Acting largely on his own initiative, he negotiated the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty with US Secretary of State John Hay, signing it on 18 November 1903, days before an official Panamanian delegation arrived in Washington; the treaty granted the United States a canal zone in perpetuity on terms considerably more generous to Washington than Panamanian negotiators had anticipated, a source of lasting Panamanian resentment.

• Lived: 1859 CE – 1940 CE
• Nationality: french
• Roles: Panamanian minister plenipotentiary to the United States (1903)