President Trump has signed an executive order to direct the Justice Department to halt enforcement of laws that prevent bribery against foreign government officials.
The order, signed Monday, suspends enforcement of the Foreign Corruption Practices Act (FCPA) directed at American and foreign companies. The order argues that the law was “growth beyond its reasonable limits and abused in a way that harmed the interests of the United States.”
“It sounds good on paper, but in practicality, it's a disaster,” Trump said in his oval office, referring to the FCPA. “It's that if an American goes abroad and starts a legal, legal or other business, it's a pretty much guaranteed investigative charge and no one wants to do business with Americans for that reason. It means.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi was directed through the order to review the FCPA for 180 days and to lay out new guidelines for implementing it.
The FCPA is a 1977 law that suspended “organizations of certain classes of individuals and organizations to make payments to foreign government officials to help acquire or maintain their business.” According to the Department of Justice. It originally applied to Americans and certain foreign publishers, and expanded in 1998 to apply to foreign companies.
“It's a Jimmy Carter concept and sounds very good, but it's very bad. It hurts the country and a lot of trades don't want to do business, so you can't do a lot of trades.” Trump said Monday.
The Department of Justice took action in 2024 in 24 cases related to the FCPA and 17 cases in 2023. CNBC reported.
