US needs to address 'corporate inversion'

Washington

NO one would suggest that Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders - the socialist who beat former secretary of state Hillary Clinton by a 13-point margin in the Democratic presidential primary in Wisconsin last Tuesday - or that the electoral success of the current Republican presidential frontrunner, the nationalist Donald Trump, were responsible for the decision by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer to call off a US$152 billion merger with the Dublin-based Allergan last week.

But there is no doubt that the willingness on the part of President Barack Obama to challenge and successfully scuttle a plan by another American company to move its operations overseas in order to avoid US taxes is a reflection of the dramatic change in the political environment in Washington.