I strongly disagree, from
Panama you can easily open accounts with
IBKR, Saxo Bank (Saxo bank has partnerships with multiple banks in Panama), TD Ameritrade (well now that Schwab is finally merging with them not sure how that will continue so we will need to see in the next month), Tiger brokers (
Singapore) if you are a
real resident. And that's without counting the local options and I'm pretty sure there are more. All the options I just mentioned are basically free brokers (Saxo bank not really but it's because is Saxo bank)