WikiLeaks exposes Washington’s dollar diplomacy

[amyrose2712]

According to leaked cables, in early 2010 a draft law in Russia’s Duma, or lower house of parliament, threatened to “disadvantage” US credit card companies MasterCard and Visa. Among other things, the law would have taken steps toward creating a National Payment Card System (NPCS) that would prevent MasterCard and Visa from collecting as much as US$4 billion in credit card fees annually.
A February 1, 2010 cable from the Moscow Embassy, marked “confidential,” describes the draft law as well as conversations between US diplomats and MasterCard and Visa agents. Apparently, Russian officials believed that MasterCard and Visa were making their Russian records available to US intelligence agencies. The cable’s author, Matthias Mitman, a US diplomat specializing in economic affairs, requested that the Obama administration take immediate action.
“This draft law continues to disadvantage U.S. payment card market leaders Visa and MasterCard,” Mitman wrote. “We recommend that senior USG officials also take advantage of meetings with their Russian counterparts, including through the Bilateral Presidential Commission, to press the GOR to change the draft text to ensure U.S. payment companies are not adversely affected.” In other words, high-level officials in the Obama administration—perhaps even Obama himself—were encouraged to take the issue up directly with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

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A series of cables from late 2008 reveal a partnership between the US embassy in Panama and the Bechtel Corporation to place a winning bid on a Panama Canal Authority construction contract. Apparently, the US embassy viewed its mission as securing the profits of Bechtel. The embassy reported back to Washington that it “will continue to monitor the process, to advocate for Bechtel, and to promote U.S. based content.” (Bechtel eventually lost the bid to a Spanish company.)
In July 2008, the US ambassador to Ecuador conducted what amounts to “collections” work for US businesses, pressing the government of Ecuador to make additional payments it allegedly owed to Machala Power, a subsidiary of US electricity company Noble Energy.
In March 2005, the US ambassador to Brazil facilitated “participation of U.S. firms in commercial space launches at the Alcantara facility in northern Brazil.”
In August 2008, Forbes Energy executives met with the US ambassador to Haiti “regarding the company’s planned USD 700 million sugarcane ethanol project straddling the Dominican Republic-Haiti border.”
A series of 2009 cables from the US embassy in Nigeria, the most populous African country, document the stranglehold exerted by Shell Oil together with the US State Department: together they blocked legislation that threatened to cut across Shell Oil profits, removed Nigerian officials that stood in their way, and paid for the installation of friendly agents at all levels of the Nigerian government. (See “WikiLeaks documents show Shell Oil domination of Nigeria“)

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/feb2011/dipl-f03.shtml