Biden Admin Releases Anti-Corruption Strategy, Planning More Sanctions
The Biden administration unveiled a new strategy to counter corruption, and officials said they are planning new sanctions in the coming days to target corrupt actors and other international criminals. As part of the strategy, which came after a 200-day review by federal agencies to determine how the U.S. can better curb illicit finance, the administration will increase anti-corruption work at the Treasury, State and Commerce departments, according to a Dec. 6 White House fact sheet. The U.S. also will take “meaningful steps” to stop corrupt actors from using the U.S. and the international financial systems.
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The government will soon be “elevating our anti-corruption work as a cross-cutting priority,” including through new “senior positions and coordinating bodies” at various enforcement agencies, a senior administration official said. Treasury will also take a “series of actions” this week to impose sanctions on “individuals who are engaged in malign activities that undermine democracy and democratic institutions around the world,” the official told reporters Dec. 5.
The administration released the new strategy ahead of this week's virtual Summit for Democracy, which will gather more than 100 democratic nations to discuss threats to democracy. The Dec. 9-10 summit will “serve as a platform for the U.S. and other governments to announce new commitments, reforms, and initiatives,” the official said, including around fighting corruption, sanctions and export controls (see 2112020073).
Treasury will continue to rely on sanctions to target international corruption and look to improve its information gathering to impose those designations, Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo said Dec. 6. He said the agency plans to use “new resources like beneficial ownership data” to “enhance the targeting and efficacy of our sanctions actions.” The agency is also working within the intergovernmental Financial Action Task force to “bolster global standards for beneficial ownership transparency.”
“Once that transparency exists, the way to deter people from taking these actions is actually by using the enforcement tools that also exist,” Adeyemo told the Brookings Institution, specifically referencing Treasury’s designations against Alain Mukonda and 12 companies for providing support to sanctioned billionaire Dan Gertler (see 2112060014). “Where we have information, we will act, and we will act in a way to cut people off from the United States financial system.”
The strategy will help modernize U.S. sanctions and enforcement tools to keep up with new methods for evading sanctions, Adeyemo said. “Those people who seek to use the financial system and move illicit gains are innovating all the time,” he said. “A big focus is trying to make sure we extend the regulatory regime we have built to prevent the movement of illicit finances to capture new technologies,” including around cryptocurrencies.