Biden Administration Unveils Plans to Fight Corruption
WASHINGTON—The Biden administration on Monday unveiled steps to combat corruption globally, including assistance to foreign governments to increase financial transparency and new regulations on U.S. real-estate purchases to prevent money laundering.
The United States Strategy on Countering Corruption outlines steps for cracking down on criminal actors and their networks while improving cooperation between federal agencies—including the State Department, Treasury, Commerce and U.S. Agency for International Development—and law enforcement.
The 38-page plan was released Monday morning ahead of a virtual Summit for Democracy that the administration is hosting later in the week with more than 100 countries participating, officials said.
President Biden has put an emphasis on anticorruption efforts. His administration has said that corruption breaks down public trust, deepens economic and political inequality and degrades the business environment. The White House has cited estimates that acts of corruption cost between 2% and 5% of global gross domestic product though didn’t provide more details.
In June Mr. Biden issued a directive to help improve collaboration between government agencies on issues including kleptocracy and illicit finance. This week, in coordination with the democracy summit, the U.S. is expected to levy sanctions against foreign-government officials and people it accuses of corruption and human-rights abuses.
“Countering corruption is not a simple task,” the strategy document acknowledges. “Changing embedded cultures of corruption requires significant political will, and achieving sustained progress can take decades.”
Biden Administration Unveils Plans to Fight Corruption (msn.com)