President Donald Trump has directed the Department of Justice to stop enforcing a decades-old law that prohibits American corporations from bribing foreign government officials to advance their own financial interests.
As reporters watched him in the Oval Office on Monday, Trump signed the document, which directs Attorney General Pam Bondi to stop enforcing the 1934 law until she issues new enforcement guidelines.
Trump complained that the anti-corruption measure, which was signed into law by then-president Jimmy Carter in 1978, was a “disaster for this country” because “it made it very, very hard, from a practical standpoint, to make deals” overseas without violating the law, implying that bribes are expected to be a routine part of business, including for American companies.
“It hurts the country. And many, many deals are unable to be made because of it. Nobody wants to do business because they don’t want to feel like every time they pick up a phone, they’re going to jail,” he said.
A White House fact sheet seen by The Independent states that all current and past uses of the anti-corruption law will also be reviewed by justice department officials.
The fact sheet states the White House view that American corporations are disadvantaged by prohibitions on bribing corrupt foreign officials because such activity is common in international business transactions.
“U.S. companies are harmed by FCPA over-enforcement because they are prohibited from engaging in practices common among international competitors, creating an uneven playing field,” the White House stated.
American companies with the most discretionary money, however, would likely have an advantage by paying the most money in a bribe for foreign cooperation in a dead, creating an uneven playing field.
At the same time, Trump also told reporters he was issuing a pardon of former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, a former Democratic elected official who the president had freed from prison by commuting his 14-year sentence during his first term in the White House.
Blagojevich had been convicted of public corruption for attempting to sell the U.S. Senate seat that was vacated by former president Barack Obama after he won the 2008 presidential election.
While Trump’s new order suspends enforcement of anti-corruption law against American corporations, the action was just one of several recent actions he has taken to weaken enforcement of ethics and other laws since returning to office nearly a month ago.
Over the weekend, Trump removed both the head of the Office of Special Counsel, an independent agency responsible for protecting federal whistleblowers, and the head of the Office of Government Ethics.
He told reporters he was appointing a loyalist, Veterans Affairs secretary Doug Collins, as the acting head of both agencies.
