The Wall Street Journal put out this article telling how Bernie got it backwards.. again!!

When you’re a protectionist hammer, everything looks like a free-trade agreement to pound. So it shouldn’t surprise that Bernie Sanders is using the disclosures in the Panama Papers to assail the 2011 U.S.-Panama trade accord for making secret bank accounts possible. As usual, the Vermont socialist has it backward.

“What the Panamanian free-trade agreement did is enable large corporations and the wealthiest people—not just in this country but around the world—to participate in massive tax-avoidance schemes,” Mr. Sanders said in Philadelphia Thursday.

But there is no evidence to support his claim, and the opposite seems to be true. U.S. tax law requires confidentiality regarding requests that the U.S. might make of foreign governments. But what we do know is that U.S. negotiators made the signing of a separate bilateral tax agreement with Panama a condition for signing the larger trade deal. It was ratified by Panama ahead of the trade deal.

This tax accord is known as a tax information exchange agreement, and it essentially obliges the two governments to share tax information, a practice that helps track down tax evaders. As the Obama Treasury puts it, these agreements “increase transparency between the U.S. and financial centers around the world.”

By the way, U.S. goods exports to Panama increased from 2012-2014, though last year they fell below the 2011 total in part due to a slowdown in Panama’s economy. The deal also gives U.S. businesses access to Panama’s $20.6 billion market in services. All of which is to say that the Panama free-trade deal is a net benefit for the U.S. even if it doesn’t fit Bernie’s political narrative.