Afrasianet - The dispute between US President Trump and billionaire Elon Musk reveals the secrets of corruption pervasive in the United States of America, especially among officials.
There are many U.S. officials who have been prosecuted for corruption. Notable examples include Senator Robert Menendez, who was convicted of corruption. Other FIFA officials have also been prosecuted for corruption. In addition, government officials have been prosecuted at the federal and state levels for corruption.
• In one of the most prominent political scandals in the United States, a US jury convicted prominent Senator Robert Menendez on corruption charges, as gold bars and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash were found in his home, prompting widespread calls for his resignation. Menendez, who faces up to 222 years in prison, denies the charges and asserts his patriotism.
• The 70-year-old New Jersey Democratic senator was charged with extortion, obstruction of justice and accepting bribes to provide services to businessmen with ties to Egypt and Qatar.
• A spokesman for the Southern District Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York said the charges combined carry a maximum sentence of up to 222 years in prison. The charges included conspiracy to commit acts of corruption, acting as a foreign agent while serving as a public servant, and obstruction of justice.
• His wife, Nadine Menendez, has also been charged and will be prosecuted separately for her breast cancer treatment.
• Menendez was also convicted along with two Egyptian-American businessmen Wael Hanna and real estate developer Farid Daibes. A third businessman, insurance broker José Uribe, pleaded guilty to bribery charges and assisted investigators.
• Menendez reportedly interfered in the appointment of a New Jersey prosecutor to ensure that proceedings against Daibes and Uribe were dropped, and was accused of accepting bribes to use his power and influence to enrich his conspirators and assist the government of Egypt.
• New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy called on Menendez to resign immediately.
• A recent study from research by the universities of Hong Kong and Indiana and published by Fortune shows that corruption at the level of US states - especially the 10 most corrupt states - costs citizens on average 5.2% of those states' expenditures annually.
The study was based on data collected by the two universities on corruption charges against more than 25,000 public sector officials for violating federal laws between 1976 and 2008.
Some states mentioned in the research list were not surprising, such as "Illinois", which has gained a bad reputation for its high rate of corruption in recent years, and the list was also not without the states of "Mississippi" and "Louisiana", which recorded the least economic development.
The researchers discovered that nine of the ten most corrupt states had higher spending rates compared to the less corrupt states (except South Dakota), moreover, spending in the most corrupt states was different, focusing on construction, salaries, borrowing and police protection at the expense of social sectors such as education, health and hospitals.
Spending in the construction sector has been linked to suspicions of corruption, especially with regard to infrastructure projects, due to manipulation of the quality and standards of these projects, which are difficult for the public to detect, monopolistic companies have dominated the industry, and corruption has been monitored in police sectors, which requires the presence of correctional institution employees to address this.
A Foreign Ministry employee writes under a pseudonym: A few years ago, I was the senior coordinator for global anti-corruption at the U.S. Department of State, and I visited a West African country in my fieldwork. An American businessman, whose company ran an important national institution there, told me about a government official who asked him for a bribe. When I asked him how he got out of that predicament, he said the way out was simple: "I told him I wouldn't go to jail on his behalf."
The law that the businessman refused to break was the Corrupt Practices Abroad Act of 1977. President Donald Trump issued an executive order to halt its implementation, in blatant defiance of US policy and practice for fifty years.
Trump argues that the rules of that law deprive US companies of lucrative business opportunities. But the evidence for this claim is weak and scanty. A more lenient approach to investigating and prosecuting foreign bribery will ultimately hurt US businesses and taxpayers.
U.S. lawmakers enacted the law in response to a series of bribery scandals in the seventies that embarrassed the United States, undermined its foreign policies and international partnerships, and harmed its companies.
There are dozens of examples, but the most prominent relates to Lockheed, a U.S. defense contractor, bribing Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka. The congressional debates were detailed, specific, and wide-ranging, and included expert testimony and careful consideration of a variety of issues, including the implications for U.S. economic competitiveness and how U.S. law could be viewed abroad to apply U.S. law outside U.S. soil. The final version of the Offshore Corrupt Practices Act passed by a Senate unanimous vote and a 349-0 vote in the House of Representatives, demonstrating There is an overwhelming national consensus that corrupt practices abroad are hostile to U.S. interests.
Since then, the law has become a cornerstone of U.S. international economic policy, an inspiration to other countries, and the source of the 1998 OECD Anti-Bribery Convention. It is also a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy, and is widely regarded, both by U.S. corporations and their overseas partners, as the biggest difference between U.S. economists and their counterparts in China and Russia.
In fact, what Trump has done, in the name of maintaining U.S. economic competitiveness and maintaining his own foreign-policy privileges, is that he has asserted that the United States can compete and succeed only through corrupt practices. Not only is it that he denigrates American companies that have managed to conduct their business for decades without corruption. But Trump also exposes all U.S. international businesses to bribery and patronage claims to obtain contracts, undermining U.S. advantages in both the world. Practice or in reputation.
It is not lawful, under the Offshore Corrupt Practices Act, for "certain categories of persons and entities to pay foreign government officials to assist in acquiring or maintaining business." This category includes persons and entities who are U.S. citizens and resident corporations and, following the 1998 amendment, include foreign individuals and entities whose activities within the United States are subject to the Corrupt Practices Abroad Act. Since its inception, the law has required foreign companies registered in the United States to meet certain accounting requirements, such as Maintain accurate books and internal controls for transactions.
Such requirements allowed the United States to file lawsuits that resulted in billions of dollars in fines. Some of those lawsuits occurred during Trump's first administration. U.S. companies are denied being unjustly punished is that more than 40% of prosecutions in the United States have been against foreign defendants, and that foreign actors who have abused the U.S. financial system to commit their crimes are heavily represented in the list of the highest fines issued under the law. Prosecutions of the Corrupt Practices Abroad Act also included Companies operating around the world, including some that have undermined U.S. political and economic interests through corruption. These prosecutions have been well received by many foreign Governments, not least because they have resulted in compensation paid by convicted persons and restitution of lost funds.
However, the primary beneficiaries of the ACCPA were U.S. companies (and shareholders) willing to operate abroad without paying bribes. To be sure, some U.S. companies used bribery to obtain privileges and contracts. The history cited by members of Congress in their decision to negotiate and adopt the Offshore Corrupt Practices Act includes the names of dozens of U.S. companies that have used bribery to obtain privileges, purchase contracts, and valuable deals. But paying bribes is a thorny business. For every There are also examples of politicians being arrested and deals collapsing over bribery. Bribery is, after all, a crime, and article 15 of the United Nations Convention against Corruption binds all Governments that are signatories to the Convention as such. Companies that pay bribes contribute to the commission of crime and as a result may face legal consequences in any country in which they operate.
Moreover, with the Offshore Corrupt Practices Act, avoiding bribery is not the competitive disadvantage that can be avoided. U.S. companies can say clearly and resolutely that they should not engage in bribery for fear of prosecution by the US government – the US government has a long record of successful prosecutions. Anyone involved in any negotiating process knows that "third-party blame" is one of the most valuable negotiating tools, and the U.S. Department of Justice has been so far. A perfect limb to take the blame. The Foreign Extortion Prevention Act, passed by a bipartisan majority in 2023, helped neutralize any remaining competitive flaws that U.S. companies that comply with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by making foreign officials' request for bribes also prosecutable.
International companies that have complied with U.S. legislation have become leaders in encouraging anti-corruption government action and resisting corrupt practices themselves.
When I was president of the Center for Anti-Corruption Leaders to Stimulate the Private Sector, an initiative of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, I met dozens of companies who committed to fighting corruption and bribery because they saw it as in their financial interest. Members of the center include some of the world's leading companies, such as Amazon, General Motors, Siemens and Tesla. These major companies support projects such as the Blue Dot Network — an initiative created by Australia, Japan and the United States in 2019, when Trump was in office. OECD sponsorship – which verifies funding sources for foreign infrastructure projects, as well as its compliance with safety rules and other compliance measures. For these large companies, losing the Offshore Corrupt Practices Act will be detrimental, as it will become easier for unqualified companies willing to pay bribes to earn undeserved business. Companies that use corruption to obtain undeserved work tend to perform poorly, providing defective products, infrastructure and services that harm consumers. An example of this is the shocking collapse of housing projects in southern Turkey during the 2023 earthquakes.
Undoubtedly, some companies will celebrate Trump's decision. Compliance with the Offshore Corrupt Practices Act ultimately imposes costs on companies, many of which have no intention of paying bribes, and even the theoretical risk of litigation is a burden on companies operating internationally. This is understandable, no one wants to be prosecuted or work under its shadow. But companies now face a new problem: Being actively incited to bribe and cannot initiate the automatic refusal facilitated by compliance with the Corrupt Practices Abroad Act. Many U.S. companies will have to save money to pay these bribes to seal and maintain deals.
This burden will weigh on clean and corrupt companies alike.
Every foreign contract that U.S. companies now acquire will be tainted by suspicion of bribery. Even if this is not true, the mere allegation will expose these companies to further demands for bribes, as rarely does a transaction take place with just one bribe. This link will continue to haunt companies everywhere they do business. If she bribed someone to get a contract or waiver in one country, why not do the same with others?
Trump is also risking the U.S. position in the international anti-money laundering surveillance system run by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an intergovernmental body that harmonizes standards of banking practices. Bribery and corruption are forms of money laundering, and as a member of the working group, the United States is expected to demonstrate compliance with its standards when the country's mutual assessment process, a required audit by other members, begins in 2026. And even debate whether the U.S. should be included on the Working Group's "grey list" -- In practice, it is a case of validity—because it does not meet the required standards, U.S. companies and banks can incur significant costs.
The transactions of institutions and companies from countries on this list are subject to greater scrutiny and may have difficulty obtaining financing. How members apply this scrutiny to a large and systemically important financial sector such as the United States is far from clear, and only serves to highlight how extraordinary Trump's steps are.
Another problem with Trump's executive order is the fragility and risks it poses to U.S. trade relations in the long run. Corruption is unpopular, nor is it for those who participate in it. If or when U.S. companies are found to have engaged in pre-business corruption, disclosure will hurt the United States, as happened before the Overseas Corrupt Practices Act was enacted: corruption scandals brought down foreign governments that were partners with the United States, and their corruption was realized through bribery by American companies. When those governments fell Corrupt, the United States has lost more than trade deals. It has also lost the access and influence it once had. Avoiding such self-harm was one of the reasons why the Offshore Corrupt Practices Act was enacted in the first place. Opening the door again to corruption, combined with the Trump administration's cancellation of foreign aid programs, portends a deterioration in Washington's ability to influence political, economic, and security developments in regions that will be critical to the future of the United States, particularly in Africa, Southeast Asia and the Western Hemisphere.
From a geostrategic perspective, Trump's abandonment of the Overseas Corrupt Practices Act is a disastrous decision. It is true that foreign governments do not adopt the same enthusiastic approach to implementing the Offshore Corrupt Practices Act (or its national equivalent) as the United States has done in the past, but unlike the United States today, they still claim to faithfully implement their full obligations under the 2005 United Nations Convention against Corruption and the 1999 OECD Anti-Bribery Convention.
It is reasonable to argue that, until recently, the United States was leading global anti-corruption efforts and others were failing to do their duty. Surrender will not correct this imbalance. Instead, Washington should be more robust in enforcing global norms and standards. The U.S. government has the ways to do it right. It has a range of sanctions in place that it can impose on those involved in international corruption, and it can impose additional sanctions on financial firms, lawyers, and dealers. Influence who entrench corruption and the countries that use it use strategic weapons. Trump has shown a willingness to use economic coercion to respond to unfair international practices, both real and imagined. If there is one form of trade manipulation worth countering with the tools of U.S. economic governance, it is corruption.
Congress could resist Trump's weakening of the Overseas Corrupt Practices Act, for example by insisting that any candidate for law enforcement roles commit to applying the Overseas Corrupt Practices Act and using his or her powers of legislative oversight to ensure their compliance. The private sector also has a role to play. U.S. companies can commit themselves to anti-corruption standards regardless of what the government does. The New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq have codes of conduct and ethics that they can continue to enforce, and the banking community should maintain anti-bribery and anti-corruption standards. in payments and investments. Ultimately, the country and other jurisdictions will enforce their own anti-corruption laws even if the United States does not, perhaps even targeting U.S. companies engaged in corrupt practices in the context of the global economic competition that the Trump administration is exaggerating.
Long-term damage
Trump may be right that other countries are willing to use corruption to advance their interests. But the decline to their level is a counter-response to this problem. US companies that did not pay bribes will now be suspected of doing so, while companies that pay bribes will drain their shareholders' profits and be complicit in national criminal schemes that make governments more fragile, weak, and less popular. U.S. adversaries will exploit the country's newly lax law enforcement standards, outweighing the long-term harm. Trump's decision to abandon the Overseas Corrupt Practices Act has no plausible benefits in the near term.
In 1975, Senator Frank Church, an Idaho Democrat and one of the leaders of the Overseas Corrupt Practices Act negotiations, said that "it's no longer enough to sigh and say that's how business is run. It's time to tackle the issue for what it is: it's a serious foreign policy problem." Then, as now, enforcement of the Overseas Corrupt Practices Act is benign for the United States. Investigations and prosecutions must resume before their suspension can cause further damage.
Corruption in America. Paying pensions to 220-year-old citizens.
Over time, debate and controversy rages in American society after the latest allegations raised a few days ago by the official of the US Government Efficiency Department, Elon Musk, who claimed that there are people of "unreasonable" age up to 220 years old who receive Social Security payments.
About a week ago, Musk said, during a White House news conference, that a "quick social security check" showed "people (getting the guarantee) at about the age of 150."
Days later, Musk posted a screenshot on his X platform, claiming it showed people listed as alive in the Social Security database at unbelievable ages, including more than 1,000 people over the age of 220 and one person between 360 and 369.
"It's probably a movie about immortal vampires and there's a lot of vampires collecting Social Security," Musk said, noting that the graph shows unreasonable people of their age receiving government payments through the Social Security program, which provides income to U.S. retirees, people with disabilities, and families who have lost a spouse or parent.
He considered in a post on his account on the X platform, that there are large-scale fraud taking place in this program.
According to a report published by Snops News, while an audit published in 2023 found that the central social security database, known as the Nomident, contains information on 18.9 million people born before 1920 and no information about their deaths in the records – meaning they are over 100 years old if they are alive – only 44,000 of them were receiving payments from the Social Security Administration (SSA).The auditors wrote that Numident contained incomplete death records because these people died before using the electronic death reporting system. While the agency's lack of death records may make it more vulnerable to fraud, the small number of people over the age of 100 who receive payment suggests that this is not a widespread problem.
While the Social Security Administration made some efforts to update its records, officials decided not to implement the recommendations from the auditors because the number of people over the age of 112 was very small, and the cost of correcting Nomident's records was not worth the expected benefits.
An earlier audit published in 2015 found that while 6.5 million people in the Numident database were over 112, payments were only sent to 266 beneficiaries, and most of them were likely to have records indicating they were actually younger than 112. However, this audit also found thousands of potential uses for social security numbers associated with unreasonable people of their age.
While the Social Security Administration (SSA) made some efforts to update its records, officials decided not to implement the recommendations from the auditors because the number of people over the age of 112 who received payments was too small, and because the cost of correcting Nomident's records was not worth the desired benefits.