The U.S. just hit its lowest score ever on an international corruption measure

Yahoo

12-02-2025

Nonprofit Transparency International released its annual Corruption Perceptions Index, which ranked the U.S. 28th overall in the world when it comes to anti-corruption. The index factors in criteria such as the prevalence of bribery and the degree to which public officials use their positions to benefit themselves.
The U.S. scored its lowest-ever rating on an international corruption index.
On Tuesday, the German nonprofit Transparency International released its annual Corruption Perceptions Index. The latest version of the index, which assessed data through 2024, evaluates corruption in the public sector across 180 countries. It encompasses factors such as the diversion of public funds, how commonplace bribery is, whether public officials use their office for personal gains, nepotism in civil service appointments, and legal protections for whistleblowers, among other things. The index also takes into account a country's ability to prosecute corruption in the event it is uncovered.
The United States received a score of 65 out of 100, its worst rating since the list was first established in 2012. In the annual rankings, the U.S. was 28th on the list, tied with the Bahamas. It was one spot above longtime allies South Korea and Israel, which were tied just below the U.S.
The highest-ranked country on the list was Denmark, which had a score of 90 out of 100. In second and third place were Finland and Singapore, with scores of 88 and 84, respectively. The lowest-ranked country was South Sudan, which scored eight points on Transparency International's scale.
On Monday, the U.S. paused enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), which made it against the law for companies to bribe foreign officials. President Donald Trump signed an executive order that would stop enforcing the law on the grounds that it made it more difficult for U.S. firms to do business abroad.
'U.S. companies are harmed by FCPA overenforcement because they are prohibited from engaging in practices common among international competitors, creating an uneven playing field,' read a fact sheet released by the White House on Monday.
The Trump administration's recent changes to the FCPA did not affect the U.S.'s standing in the Transparency International's most recent report, which only covered the 2024 calendar year.
Trump had eyed scrapping the law in his first term as well. In 2017, Trump reportedly asked former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson for his help in getting rid of the law, which he called 'so unfair,' according to the book A Very Stable Genius by Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig.
Originally founded in 1993 by former World Bank employees, Transparency International publishes its list to draw attention to the effects corruption can have on human development.
'Corruption is an evolving global threat that does far more than undermine development—it is a key cause of declining democracy, instability, and human rights violations,' Transparency International chair Francois Valerian said in a statement. 'The international community and every nation must make tackling corruption a top and long-term priority. This is crucial to pushing back against authoritarianism and securing a peaceful, free and sustainable world.'
There was little progress toward anti-corruption across the list. Only 32 countries reduced their levels of corruption since Transparency International began collecting data in 2012, according to the organization's website. That means over that span, the degree of corruption in 148 countries stayed the same or worsened. In addition to the U.S., 47 other countries received their lowest-ever scores, including some of the U.S.'s democratic counterparts like Brazil, Germany, and France. Others included countries where democratic norms had either been eroded recently or never existed to begin with, such as Hungary, Russia, and Iran.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com