Biden administration releases plan to combat corruption at home and abroad

The Biden administration Monday released a 5-pillar strategy to combat corruption in the U.S. and abroad.

"Corruption threatens United States national security, economic equity, global antipoverty and development efforts, and democracy itself," Biden said in a statement on June 3, 2021, as he established a fight against corruption as a core national security interest of the United States. "But by effectively preventing and countering corruption and demonstrating the advantages of transparent and accountable governance, we can secure a critical advantage for the United States and other democracies."

The strategy involves five pillars: modernizing, coordinating and resourcing U.S. government efforts to fight corruption; curbing illicit finance; holding corrupt actors accountable; preserving and strengthening the multilateral anti-corruption architecture; and improving diplomatic engagement and leveraging foreign assistance resources to fight corruption.

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The strategy comes after federal departments and agencies conducted a review "to take stock of existing U.S. Government anti-corruption efforts and to identify and seek to rectify persistent gaps in the fight against corruption."

The strategy "builds on the findings of the review and lays out a comprehensive approach for how the United States will work domestically and internationally, with governmental and non-governmental partners, to prevent, limit, and respond to corruption and related crimes," the document explains.

The strategy lays out a few different types of corruption: 

• Grand corruption: when political elites steal large sums of public funds or otherwise abuse power for personal or political advantage.
• Administrative corruption: the abuse of entrusted power for private gain — usually by low- to mid-level government officials — in interactions with citizens and the private sector, including to skirt official regulations and extort citizens in exchange for their basic services.
• Kleptocracy: a government controlled by officials who use political power to appropriate the wealth of its nation. Can include state capture.
• State capture: when private entities improperly and corruptly influence a country’s decision-making process for their own benefit.
• Strategic corruption: when a government weaponizes corrupt practices as a tenet of its foreign policy.

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"From the small-town hospital administrator who demands bribes in exchange for life-saving services, to the globe-trotting kleptocrat who offshores an embezzled fortune, corruption harms both individuals and societies," the strategy document explains.