Trump’s Latest Solution To Everything: Let’s Make Foreign Bribery Great Again

There have been legitimate debates about whether the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act - which makes it a criminal act for US entities to bribe foreign government officials - sometimes creates gray areas in international business. For example, over a decade ago, the Walmart Mexico case highlighted how Walmart payments to speed up" permitting to build stores in Mexico blurred the line between standard expedited licensing and outright bribery.

But the law has been crucial in establishing clear standards for international business conduct. If nothing else, it made it so that American businesses could stand up to demands for bribes by pointing to the law, and saying they can't because of the law.

Donald Trump, for whatever reason, has long been a critic of the law, though ironically, his own Justice Department in his first administration would go on to become its most aggressive enforcer.

This time around, when he seems to be trying to usurp Congress' authority at every opportunity (and Congress is letting him do so), he has just instructed the Attorney General to ignore the law and let companies bribe foreign officials. Even leaving aside that the President is not supposed to instruct the Attorney General what laws to enforce, and which not to enforce, and that the Attorney General is supposed to be independent of the President, this seems bad.

It's a move that perfectly encapsulates the Trump doctrine: when the law becomes inconvenient for your friends, just pretend it doesn't exist.

It sounds good, but it hurts the country," Trump said of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, as he signed the order at the White House.

Many, many deals are unable to be made because nobody wants to do business, because they don't want to feel like every time they pick up the phone, they're going to jail," Trump said, referring to U.S. anti-corruption efforts.

Of course, Trump's complaints about FCPA enforcement creating a chilling effect on business are directly contradicted by his own administration's record. Not only was Trump's Justice Department by far the most aggressive enforcer of the FCPA in its history, but American companies somehow managed to continue doing international business throughout this period of heightened enforcement.

In comparison, the Biden admin seemed to barely use it at all.

If Trump is claiming that deals are unable to be made because they don't want to feel like every time they pick up the phone, they're going to jail," then surely he can point us to some US businesses that claim the FCPA chilled their ability to pick up the phone." Spoiler alert: he can't, because that's not how this works.

On top of that, now, Trump announcing this fucks over tons of American businesses who will now be shaken down for bribes, and can no longer point to the FCPA to protect them (even as the law remains on the books, because Trump doesn't have the Congressional votes to remove it). The end result is terrible for American businesses who will now be threatened and pushed to bribe foreign officials in all sorts of situations.

But, hey, if you want to look through what kinds of poor, poor executives are being caught under this law, Stanford has a nice page that has all the details you could need - at least until the admin forces it down.

This isn't about making American business more competitive or solving any real economic problems. It's about creating a permission structure for a specific kind of corruption that benefits a specific class of people. And if you're wondering how enabling international bribery will help address any of America's actual challenges - from the price of eggs to healthcare access - well, that's probably because you're thinking about this all wrong. The point was never to solve those problems in the first place.