Trump halts enforcement of US anti-bribery law

US President Donald Trump has ordered the Justice Department to halt enforcement of a US anti-corruption law that prohibits Americans from bribing foreign government officials to secure business deals.

“This will mean a lot more jobs for America,” the president said in the Oval Office on Monday after signing a decree ordering US Attorney General Pam Bondi to halt enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 (FCPA). “It sounds good on paper, but [in practice] it’s a disaster,” he said in the Oval Office.

Trump argued that the law means that if an American travels to a foreign country and starts doing business there “legally, legitimately or otherwise,” “it’s almost a guaranteed investigation, indictment, and therefore no one wants to do business with Americans.”

The Financial Times (FT) quoted a White House official as saying that the country’s “national security depends on America and its companies gaining strategic commercial advantages around the world.”

“President Trump is halting excessive and unpredictable FCPA enforcement that reduces the competitiveness of American companies,” the official added.

The FCPA has underpinned some of the Justice Department’s most high-profile cases, including last year’s plea agreement reached by commodities trader Trafigura over bribes it paid to do business with Brazilian state-controlled oil company Petrobras.

In 2022, one of McKinsey’s former senior partners pleaded guilty to conspiracy in violation of the FCPA in connection with a widespread corruption scandal during the administration of former South African President Jacob Zuma.

Last October, US defense giant RTX agreed to pay more than $950 million over allegations that it bribed a Qatari official to facilitate arms sales and defrauded the Pentagon into overpaying for weapons, including Patriot missile systems.

The White House official said that Secretary Bondi will issue new enforcement guidance that “promotes American competitiveness and the effective use of federal law enforcement resources” and that previous and current FCPA actions will be reviewed.

The official added that US companies have suffered from “over-enforcement” of the law because they are “prohibited from engaging in practices that are common among international competitors, which creates an uneven playing field.”

The White House said US national security requires strategic advantages in various infrastructure assets, such as critical mines and deepwater ports. The official argued that FCPA prosecutions are imposing an ever-increasing cost on the US economy, citing 26 enforcement actions filed last year by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) related to the law.

The official said that the filing of dozens of enforcement cases each year depletes the resources of companies and law enforcement agencies. Thirty-one companies were under FCPA-related investigation at the end of 2024, officials added. The SEC established a special unit in 2010 to strengthen FCPA enforcement, which it described as a “high priority area.”