Was Hillary Clinton involved in the 2012 US-Panama Free Trade Agreement?

[Bread and Circus]

Why, why yes she was.

http://www.state.gov/secretary/20092013clinton/rm/2012/10/199953.htm

Press Statement
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State
Washington, DC
October 31, 2012

Not only will this reinforce the ties between our economies and create jobs, it secures our strategic partnership with a key partner. I want to thank President Martinelli for his leadership on the entry into force of the TPA and look forward to both countries fully realizing the promise of this agreement.

===

http://www.ibtimes.com/panama-papers-obama-clinton-pushed-trade-deal-amid-warnings-it-would-make-money-2348076

Panama Papers: Obama, Clinton Pushed Trade Deal Amid Warnings It Would Make Money Laundering, Tax Evasion Worse

The Panama FTA pushed for by Obama and Clinton, watchdog groups said, effectively barred the United States from cracking down on questionable activities. Instead of requiring concessions of the Panamanian government on banking rules and regulations, combating tax haven abuse in Panama could violate the agreement. Should the U.S. embark on such an endeavor, it could be exposed to fines from international authorities.

“The FTA would undermine existing U.S. policy tools against tax haven activity,” warned consumer watchdog group Public Citizen at the time, saying the agreement would encourage corporations to thwart any U.S. efforts to combat financial secrecy. The group also noted that U.S. government contractors, as well as major financial firms supported by taxpayer bailouts, stood to gain from the trade deal's provisions that could make it harder to crack down on financial secrecy.

===

http://www.alternet.org/world/6-things-you-need-know-about-bombshell-panama-papers-leak

Bearing similarities to the infamous NAFTA deal, the "United States-Panama Trade Promotion Agreement" was implemented in 2012.

According to Lori Wallach, the director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, "Nearly five years after the U.S.-Panama Free Trade Agreement vote, the Panama Paper leak proves once again how entirely cynical and meaningless are the lavish promises made by American presidents and corporations about the economic benefits and policy reforms from trade agreements. The top promise about the benefits of the U.S.-Panama FTA was that it would end Panama’s financial crime secrecy protections and tax haven and money laundering activities, but this leak shows that, if anything, Panama’s outrageous financial crime facilitation has intensified while the FTA’s investor protections and official U.S. stamp of approval has increased inflows of dirty money to Panama."

"Now the same cast of characters is making equally outlandish promises of the benefits of the TPP," Wallach told AlterNet

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But who in 2011 was sounding the alarm???

This motherfucking guy...... Bernie Motherfucking Sanders!

http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/senate-speech-by-sen-bernie-sanders-on-unfettered-free-trade


Senate Speech by Sen. Bernie Sanders on Unfettered Free Trade
Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Mr. President, I rise in strong opposition to the free trade agreements with Korea, Colombia, and Panama.

Let's be clear: one of the major reasons that the middle class in America is disappearing, poverty is increasing and the gap between the rich and everyone else is growing wider and wider is due to our disastrous unfettered free trade policy.

...

Finally, Mr. President, let's talk about the Panama Free Trade Agreement.

Panama's entire annual economic output is only $26.7 billion a year, or about two-tenths of one percent of the U.S. economy. No-one can legitimately make the claim that approving this free trade agreement will significantly increase American jobs.

Then, why would we be considering a stand-alone free trade agreement with this country?

Well, it turns out that Panama is a world leader when it comes to allowing wealthy Americans and large corporations to evade U.S. taxes by stashing their cash in off-shore tax havens. And, the Panama Free Trade Agreement would make this bad situation much worse.

Each and every year, the wealthy and large corporations evade $100 billion in U.S. taxes through abusive and illegal offshore tax havens in Panama and other countries.

According to Citizens for Tax Justice, "A tax haven . . . has one of three characteristics: It has no income tax or a very low-rate income tax; it has bank secrecy laws; and it has a history of non-cooperation with other countries on exchanging information about tax matters. Panama has all three of those. ... They're probably the worst."

Mr. President, the trade agreement with Panama would effectively bar the U.S. from cracking down on illegal and abusive offshore tax havens in Panama. In fact, combating tax haven abuse in Panama would be a violation of this free trade agreement, exposing the U.S. to fines from international authorities.

In 2008, the Government Accountability Office said that 17 of the 100 largest American companies were operating a total of 42 subsidiaries in Panama. This free trade agreement would make it easier for the wealthy and large corporations to avoid paying U.S. taxes and it must be defeated. At a time when we have a record-breaking $14.7 trillion national debt and an unsustainable federal deficit, the last thing that we should be doing is making it easier for the wealthiest people and most profitable corporations in this country to avoid paying their fair share in taxes by setting-up offshore tax havens in Panama.

Adding insult to injury, Mr. President, the Panama FTA would require the United States to waive Buy America requirements for procurement bids from thousands of foreign firms, including many Chinese firms, incorporated in this major tax haven. That may make sense to China, it does not make sense to me.

Finally, Panama is also listed by the State Department as a major venue for Mexican and Colombian drug cartel money laundering. Should we be rewarding this country with a free trade agreement? I think the answer should be a resounding no.

===

Mr. Sanders, drop the mic and leave the building.... class dismissed.

[revbones]

1. Where there's smoke, there's fire.

Where there's a scummy deal screwing over regular people, there's Hillary Clinton.

[jillan]

3. Zing!!

Agreed.

[SillyPinkBunny]

14. Or in this case, there was a tax information exchange agreement

As part of the Panama Trade treaty there was a tax information exchange agreement, which may be why there are few Americans on the list.

http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/panama-papers-why-arent-there-more-american-names

[jillan]

2. Time to put the gloves on Bernie. This is yuuuge.

[Bread and Circus]

4. It is yuuuge.

[Marr]

5. I'm anxious to see what the 'coming next' part is.

Apparently US leaders, huh?

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. I doubt US Leaders will be in the list

here is why... not that I am not keeping my eyes open ok

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511653573

[AzDar]

6. K & R

[PufPuf23]

7. Killer post on why HRC has no business being POTUS and Sanders should be. kr

[Scuba]

8. So one of our candidates pushed for it, the other warned of the consequences.

I'll take Bernie's judgment over Hillary's experience every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

[pajarogrande]

9. Is Hillary the only Politician we can tie to this?? Used correctly, this could weed them all out!

How do I find out what Cruz's vote was on this Free Trade bill? What were Trump's and Obama's opinion on it?
This was obviously a trade agreement, specifically drawn to encourage corruption and illegal activity. We can make it so that anyone who was in favor of this act is immediately and quite logically linked to encouraging tax evasion and illegal activity...
The president of Iceland has already resigned...
ITS TIME FOR CORRUPT POLITICIAN's BLOOD!

[bigwillq]

12. Hello.

Welcome to DU!

[BernieforPres2016]

11. Could you please tie our hands so we can't investigate your fraudulent tax haven business?

"The Panama FTA pushed for by Obama and Clinton, watchdog groups said, effectively barred the United States from cracking down on questionable activities."


Obama and Clinton must be powerful negotiators for Panama to have agreed to that.

[BernieforPres2016]

13. Why this story is such a big deal

It demonstrates that the rigged economy and the 0.1% versus the 99.9% isn't just a U.S. issue, it is a global issue. There are going to be thousands of politicians and 0.1%ers from around the world linked to this.

And flash back to when Secretary of State stepped in to help UBS negotiate a compromise with the IRS and only release a small percentage of the names connected to secret bank accounts that the IRS was demanding.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/07/hillary-helps-a-bankand-then-it-pays-bill-15-million-in-speaking-fees/400067/

<“A few weeks after Hillary Clinton was sworn in as secretary of state in early 2009, she was summoned to Geneva by her Swiss counterpart to discuss an urgent matter. The Internal Revenue Service was suing UBS AG to get the identities of Americans with secret accounts,” the newspaper reports. “If the case proceeded, Switzerland’s largest bank would face an impossible choice: Violate Swiss secrecy laws by handing over the names, or refuse and face criminal charges in U.S. federal court. Within months, Mrs. Clinton announced a tentative legal settlement—an unusual intervention by the top U.S. diplomat. UBS ultimately turned over information on 4,450 accounts, a fraction of the 52,000 sought by the IRS.”

Then reporters James V. Grimaldi and Rebecca Ballhaus lay out how UBS helped the Clintons. “Total donations by UBS to the Clinton Foundation grew from less than $60,000 through 2008 to a cumulative total of about $600,000 by the end of 2014, according to the foundation and the bank,” they report. “The bank also joined the Clinton Foundation to launch entrepreneurship and inner-city loan programs, through which it lent $32 million. And it paid former president Bill Clinton $1.5 million to participate in a series of question-and-answer sessions with UBS Wealth Management Chief Executive Bob McCann, making UBS his biggest single corporate source of speech income disclosed since he left the White House.”

The article adds that “there is no evidence of any link between Mrs. Clinton’s involvement in the case and the bank’s donations to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, or its hiring of Mr. Clinton.” Maybe it’s all a mere coincidence, and when UBS agreed to pay Bill Clinton $1.5 million the relevant decision-maker wasn’t even aware of the vast sum his wife may have saved the bank or the power that she will potentially wield after the 2016 presidential election.

But even that wouldn’t make accepting the $1.5 million excusable.>

Hillary Clinton to Bernie in a debate during this campaign: "But you will not find a time that I ever changed a view or a vote because of any donation I ever received."

OK, so in this case, Hillary didn't receive the donations, Bill did. And they were after changing the view (of the IRS), not before. Fact Checker says TRUE, in the world the Clintons live in.