Bernie Sanders On the Panama Papers: Told You So

Back in 2011, Bernie Sanders told the Senate that Panama was “a world leader when it comes to allowing large corporations and wealthy Americans to evade US taxes.” This week, those words are sounding eerily prophetic, and the Sanders campaign, for one, would like to remind you of that fact.
As the world reels from the so-called Panama Papers leak, which exposed the offshore tax havens of world leaders from Russia’s Vladimir Putin to Icelandic Prime Minister Davíð Gunnlaugsson, Sanders is calling attention to his opposition to the 2011 Panama Trade Agreement.
“I was opposed to the Panama Free Trade Agreement from day one,” Sanders said in a statement today. “I wish I had been proven wrong about this, but it has now come to light that the extent of Panama’s tax avoidance scams is even worse than I had feared.”

As president, Sanders says he would terminate the agreement within his first six months in office and “conduct an immediate investigation into US banks, corporations, and wealthy individuals who have been stashing their cash in Panama to avoid taxes.”
So far, news on Americans implicated in the Panama Papers scandal has been scarce, though early reports show that 211 names included in the leak correspond to US addresses. Still, given just how much data was leaked—a whopping 2.6 terabytes—it will likely be a while until the journalists involved in the investigation can sort through it all.

Bad Deals

The Panama Papers scandal fits nicely into the story Sanders has already been telling on trade. In an interview with the New York Daily News‘ editorial board this week, the Vermont senator promised to renegotiate “all of the trade agreements that we have.”
But when pressed for specifics, Sanders repeatedly struggled, prompting the News to press him on answers and even compare him to Donald Trump, who’s fond of saying he’ll get rid of the “bad deals” the US has struck and replace them with good ones.
The Panama scandal gives Sanders a specific trade talking point all wrapped up in a giant, international-headline-grabbing bow. It also gives Sanders a chance to take a shot at his opponent, Hillary Clinton, for opposing the agreement during the 2008 election, then pushing it forward as Secretary of State. At the time, Clinton said the agreement would “create jobs here at home” by making it easier for businesses to sell abroad.
Now, the Sanders campaign is capitalizing on that transition. “When it really mattered she quickly reversed course and helped push the Panama Free Trade Agreement through Congress as Secretary of State,” Sanders writes. “The results have been a disaster.”