guess this will make us competitive again. do you get a tax write off for foreign bribes Trump loosens enforcement of US law banning bribery of foreign officials U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday signed an executive order directing the Justice Department to pause prosecutions of Americans accused of bribing foreign government officials while trying to win or retain business in their countries. Trump's order pauses enforcement of the nearly half-century-old Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), directs Attorney General Pam Bondi to review current and past actions related to the law and prepare new guidelines for enforcement. The law, enacted in 1977, prohibits companies that operate in the United States from bribing foreign officials. Over time, it has become a guiding force for how American businesses operate overseas. "It's going to mean a lot more business for America," Trump told reporters while signing the order in the Oval Office on Monday.
Trump 1.0 did the same. In Trump World corruption is a feature not a bug. Donald Trump lifts anti-corruption rules in 'gift to the American oil lobby' Trump himself apparently used bribery when he was in the private sector so it really shouldn't be surprising. Trump’s Business of Corruption
is a foreign bribe tax deductible? Put it under marketing expense? I guess buying a politician with access to the treasury is the best investment one can make. See Musk, Elon
The silence from the other side is deafening. They conveniently ignore this, probably because it is either indefensible, or they support it.
Just put it on the list of things Trumppublicans have no objections to: rape, crime, racist public lies, corruption. Attacking America. We've literally seen all these things. But they'll be back soon with some lies about USAID or maybe some other legitimate organization. Then as the lies are debunked, they'll scurry over to other lies. Then kind of just swirl them all around. This is their dishonest, criminal America. Not much more to be said.
Yeah, looks like even the ultra maga contingent here have nothing to offer on this one. Yet another proof that Trump is not a conservative.
I don’t know that this is a “conservative” vs. “liberal” divide so much as just a hamfisted way of approaching this issue that won’t ultimately do much. You can have a debate as to what utility the FCPA serves in some contexts and whether some kinds of FCPA prosecutions actually further its policy goals (and you sometimes have that debate in law school). The general argument is that while “big bribes” are obviously bad, there are a number of countries in the world where “routine bribes” (ie your shipment won’t get released from customs until the inspector gets a cut, etc.) are so well engrained as to effectively just be a cost of doing business there. For those kinds of countries/bribes, you can have an honest policy debate as to whether FCPA enforcement in those circumstances is actually accomplishing policy goals as opposed to just putting US companies at a competitive disadvantage vis-à-vis firms that don’t have a sufficient nexus with the U.S. to be prosecuted under the FCPA. But even if you buy that argument, this order isn’t a good way to make the policy change. At least in part because the FCPA statute of limitations is five years (and extendable in certain circumstances) such that no one can actually rely on this order to change their conduct because the statute of limitations wouldn’t have run and they would still be at risk of getting prosecuted by the next administration for their actions over the next four years.
The Trump IRS will probably determine that bribes are deductible as a legitimate cost of doing business. Although it's a different issue Trump has already determined that the acceptance of bribes by US politicians really isn't a crime. Just ask Rod R. Blagojevich and Eric Adams, especially if the politician kowtows to Trump as was the case with the latter or who was a contestant on the Celebrity Apprentice as was the former.
Why draw a distinction between his rabid supporters and his enablers? The outcome is the same. Being an enabler no longer gives you a free pass.
I hereby announce that I am open for bribes to anyone on here that would like me to help carry the water for any argument you want to make, no matter how asinine. I accept cash or travelers checks.
I was in business school when this law was passed back in 1977. We actually discussed this and prior to this passing it was considered a business expense. The thought was that if payments to officials (bribes) were a common occurrence in another country that American businesses should be able to compete in the same way.
More evidence that business schools should be disbanded and people should study useful things. At least in economics departments they are probably theorizing why bribery is inefficient or something.
The argument (as described in my post #11) is a fair one to have. It’s not the “blatant bribes” like we’ll give you $5,000,000 if you award us this contract that people are talking about in this context (everyone agrees those are bad), but the culture in particularly developing economies that a payment for doing even ministerial tasks is so routine as to be expected and that nothing will happen in a timely manner without it. Russia (pre-sanctions) and India tended to be the classic examples there, but there are definitely others. The argument is that the U.S. lacks the ability to unilaterally make civil servants in third world countries stop expecting “gratuities” for doing their jobs, so all enforcing the FCPA in that context does is make it harder for companies with significant ties to the United States to do business (and compete with non-American firms) in developing economies. But even if you agree with that argument, as I noted above this kind of order isn’t a good way to address that since it’s simultaneously both over- and under-broad in that the statute of limitations will still leave companies who pay those kinds of day-to-day bribes subject to being prosecuted under the next administration while a blanket enforcement stop doesn’t draw any meaningful line between what is and isn’t arguably “less evil.”
Obviously, THIS KIND of corruption is okay because "they were just trying to do business", but not the kind they can never prove the Democrats committed (like Hunter Biden, who was "just doing business" according to them). Accuse the other side of it, never prove they did it, and then say it's all bad, EXCEPT where it isn't and destroy the government in the process. Logic and self-reflection being something that must be impossible for MAGA, otherwise they'd end up like HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey, murdering the entire crew of our country because of irreconcilable mission objectives.
Somewhat ironically, the only people who potentially stand to actually benefit under this order are people who paid foreign bribes under the first three years of the Biden administration. The FCPA statute of limitations is longer than a presidential term, so people who already paid foreign bribes years ago might see their statute of limitations expire while there’s an enforcement pause in place, but anyone paying those kinds of bribes now would be at real risk of the next administration coming in, reversing this non-enforcement policy, and prosecuting them for it.
Anybody doing business in China has bribed a foreign official. It’s the way business is done there. I used to be asked if I had ever broken us law. I said only every time I negotiated a contract in China. lol
