The US also engineered Panama's independence in order to get sovereignty over the canal zone, which they completed. And then of course they actually invaded the country in 1989.
So the idea is clearly not new.
Now, this is Trump so a lot of bluster and unclear what he is actually getting at but in an historical perspective neither this nor (re)gaining control of the Panama canal (which the US only fully relinquished in 1999) are new or crazy.
That's not what happened. In fact its local government reached out to the US and agreed to come under its wing as a de-facto protectorate, which it saw as a preferable alternative to Canadanian/British (and in any case German) intervention.