“It’s just so unfair that American companies aren’t allowed to pay bribes to get business overseas.”
That was the startling argument U.S. President Donald Trump reportedly made in 2017 about the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits companies from paying bribes abroad. “Every other country goes into these places and they do what they have to do,” Trump had previously complained. If foreign firms could pay bribes for business, why did the law prevent U.S. firms from doing so? Equally problematic, in Trump’s view, was the FCPA’s role in furthering the United States’ status as “policeman of the world.” “What are we doing prosecuting people to keep China honest?” he asked during a 2012 television interview.
