The United Brotherhood of Carpenters has asked President Barack Obama to stand up for American workers and reject the proposed Panama Free Trade Agreement.
In a recent letter to Obama, UBC General President Doug McCarron wrote that support for a trade agreement with the Central American nation runs counter to the promise of economic change made during last year’s presidential campaign.
Passage of the trade agreement would “undercut the critical work now underway to change the misguided trade policies of the last several decades,” McCarron wrote on behalf of the UBC’s 550,000 members.
Specifically, the Free Trade Agreement with Panama, which was negotiated by the George W. Bush administration, falls short in protecting labor rights and rewards Panama for its role as a tax haven for multinational corporations.
“Panama may be a small nation, but it’s a central actor in global corporate tax dodge schemes,” the letter says. “Some 350,000 corporations are registered in Panama. The vast majority do so to take advantage of the Panamanian government’s willingness to accommodate tax evasion, fraud and money laundering.”
As a candidate, Obama frequently criticized the proposed Panamanian trade accord, but praised the measure during April’s Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago.
In his letter, UBC General President McCarron urged Obama to “support a freeze on all new trade agreements pending a thorough and open review of U.S. international trade and investment policies.”
Click >here to read UBC General President Doug McCarron’s letter to President Barack Obama.