Good article. Why is it that the press and voters in this country fail to grasp the fact politicians at the federal level since NAFTA have embarked on a deliberate and systematic policy of de-industrializing this country.
I feel like I just read the liberal version of World Nut Daily here with this article. I see lots of supposition but no smoking gun between the Panama trade deal and evidence of Americans so far sheltering their money in Panama in this shell company. If you read this article you come away thinking…so where’s the link??? And how the fuck is that related to trade?
Instead, from the article, what we have here are several people at a golf outing, association with W. so you know it must be bad, Vernon Jordan is a filthy rich guy, who you should also know is a DC lobbyist involved in free trade, even though he’s a one-time civil rights leader, and btw did you know the US has a Trade Representative?..and oh, the article didn’t fail to mention TPP, the Panama trade deal and Hillary Clinton all in one breath. So you know it must be bad…Because Bill Clinton and Obama were golfing? Its supposed to be some evil plan that was laid out years ago, which everyone now should be very suspicious about. Good Lord.
Bottom line to this article: Hillary Clinton bad, Bernie Sanders good. And seven degrees of Kevin Bacon too!
So Vote for Bernie. Oh, and something, something, transparency…
Halfway through the article I was thinking the same things.
Its not like I don’t agree with some of the premise in that trade deals do make the rich richer? There’s no question about that. That’s been the result. If the article had just addressed trade instead of all the other innuendo, I’d have been fine with this article. But to say America shouldn’t be involved in any trade if we can’t see the deleterious affects way into the future…well, that’s just dumb.
Its obvious to everyone that we need to negotiate better trade deals that are fair to American workers, undoubtably, but I don’t think this Panama trade agreement in our hemisphere was the worst of the worst. NAFTA was far worse in impacting American jobs. Besides, that shell company in Panama would still have figured out a way to take in money from tax avoiders and cheaters by rich oligarchs with or without this particular trade deal. Its not even one of the biggest tax havens on the planet…and in some places where these tax havens exist, we don’t have a trade agreement. So the connection that’s being made in this article are really specious.
This is rather odd, since I read in a couple of other places how Obama negotiated the separate tax agreement with the result that the U.S. was not having the tax evasion problems other countries were having with Panama. (Oh, and tax avoidance is perfectly legal - it’s tax evasion that’s illegal.)
Perhaps that’s why so few Americans have been implicated so far? The entire tone of this article seems to be, “Oh yeah? Well, just wait until we find out more!” But maybe the author should have waited before writing a piece long on vague innuendo and short on actual facts. Or maybe the check from Bernie was just too irresistible?
I just got here, and you took the words right out of my mouth. I was expecting some new information, but see just some innuendo and guilt by association.
And I really wish the TPP comes up for discussion this year in the Congress. President Obama shepharded this deal through, and I would like to hear a vigorous discussion of TPP based on the merits of this actual deal, not just on ideological dogma. After having worked to revive our economy, and advocate for fairer policies, I don’t believe the TPP represents a sell-out of American workers.
This piece was a disappointment.
Agree, and also, the US currently has a trade surplus with Panama, so it can’t be argued that we lost jobs to them.
Beyond that, trade as an issue is separate from bank secrecy.
I want to add something here because I think the way our history with the Panama Canal was presented puts that project in a bad light.
Republican President Theodore Roosevelt responded to the failure of French interests to construct the Panama Canal, and he pushed the U.S. to step in and complete the job, one of the greatest engineering challenges of its time.
With trade in the Western Hemisphere growing, the need was obvious: prior to the canal, a ship traveling from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean had to go clear around South America. A New York to San Francisco journey measured some 13,000 miles and took months to complete.
And there is the reason why we can no longer have a civil discussion about issues on TPM. A large cohort of Hillary supporters judges everything by “Is this good for Hillary”, and they snipe and whine and call people names if it is not good for Hillary.
But now is the time to uncover everything “not good for Hillary”, while issues are still somewhat malleable. Hillary was for TPP, and now she’s against it; and I don’t know anybody who believes she won’t be for it again the moment she’s no longer campaigning. This is a problem. This is the anger of workers screwed by trade policy for the last few decades. It is the problem of the Democratic party abandoning the people the party traditionally supported; workers, unions, and the middle class. Instead the Democratic party is now about professionals and rich people, and Bill Clinton played a big part in that, with Hillary’s support. So now, just like it’s convenient for Hillary to say she doesn’t support TPP when she did; she want’s to pretend Bill and Hillary did not sell themselves as “2 for 1” or “Billary”, and all the chickens that came home to roost due to “Bill’s” policies don’t reflect on her. And just like her current opposition to TPP, it’s very, very hard to believe. Maybe Hillary can find a solution to this disbelief, but first she has to recognize the problem that has almost half the Democratic party supporting Sanders, and will likely make Trump the Republican nominee. Hillary has to address this problem, and her “supporters” need to shut up and let her speak for herself. Denial will just make Trump the next President.
And then there’s this that totally runs contrary to the thrust of this article…
Y’know, I saw a link to that the other day, but couldn’t read it – I’m past my monthly allotment of free WAPO articles.
But I can imagine – just like this column here that conflates a bank secrecy scandal with a trade deal.
I’ll try that. Thanks
I think the more devastating vehicle of impoverishment is the overvalued dollar. Wall Street likes its strong dollar just fine, because it lowers the relative price of Chinese factories. Find me a foursome with Rubin instead of Kirk.
Agree we need better trade deals, esp that don’t create big loopholes for intellectual property, worker protections, or environmental destruction. But we do need them. Building on your point, even creating some jobs in other countries is part of the the point. E.g., If folks don’t want Mexicans coming to the US for jobs they need jobs in Mexico. If we want folks to buy our goods, they need income, too. etc.
“Trade deal” is this month’s denunciation-smear. Once besmirch someone with it, you can no longer discuss the issue.
We also need to look at our tax code. It’s not just about about trade deals.
The fact is, before NAFTA was even a glimmer in the eye of President Reagan — who spearheaded the initiative under the banner of the North American Union — the private sector was engaged in a policy of active disinvestment in these kinds of facilities, which hollowed out our industrial sector:
Leveraged buyouts of manufacturers created huge amounts of corporate debt which resulted in pressure from shareholders to downsize, shift priorities and budget allocations, or otherwise trim expenses in order to maximize revenues and boost stock prices;
Private equity firms and corporate raiders acquired industrial firms only to raid pension funds, spin-off or outsource profitable divisions, and sell off valuable real estate or other assets for short-term gains;
Tax laws were enacted to provide firms with incentives to shut down factories and outsource, write off “phantom” losses that existed only on paper, take advantage of accelerated depreciation schedules, etc.
If I had a dime for every time one of those people called someone a troll . . .
It’s the bottom line of the truth. It works here, too.
Don’t know if anyone is still following this, but thought it might be of interest:
According to a story yesterday in Bloomberg News, the Treasury Department is putting forward a rule to “compel U.S. banks to identify the people who use shell companies and similar corporate structures when they try to open accounts.”
The gist of the article is that the rule “would require individuals who own or control 25 percent or more of a corporate entity to disclose their identities to a bank before opening accounts. Doing so would help banks peek behind these complex structures to make sure that they’re not doing business with tax evaders, terrorists, money launderers, drug traffickers or corrupt government officials.”
Oh please, how many commenters here that are old enough supported Bill Clinton! And Bernie Sanders has been part of the Democratic caucus for over 30 years, which is how much of a socialist and opposition he has been and is. Tax havens and looking for the cheapest labor worldwide are just everyday normal operations of capitalist imperialism, and have been for most of 200 years. If you don’t like that, quit whining, quit voting for Democrats and Democrats pretending to be something else, and work to overthrow it.