Biden signs memorandum on global fight against corruption

US President Joe Biden has signed a memorandum proclaiming the fight against corruption in the world as one of the key tasks in the field of the country’s national security, US senior administration official said during a special press briefing via teleconference, Report informs referring to the White House website.

“With the memorandum, President Biden is formally establishing the fight against corruption as a core national security interest of the United States. That was a commitment that he made during the campaign. So what the national security study memorandum (NSSM) does is it directs the US government to review and send to President Biden a report and recommendations in 200 days on how the government and its partners can modernize, coordinate, and further resource efforts to better fight corruption, tackle illicit finance, hold corrupt actors accountable, and build international partnerships. So it’s really the broadest span of what each of our federal departments and agencies does on anti-corruption,” the official said.

“And so we’re just going to be looking at all of the tools in our disposal to make sure that we identify corruption where it’s happening and take appropriate policy responses,” the official added.

“We’ll certainly be looking at the impact of cryptocurrency as a means of illicit finance, but by no means was - were my remarks limited to crypto. We’ve seen, over many years, how corruption oversea- the proceeds of corruption overseas make their way into the US and international financial systems through anonymity. So, this isn’t in any way limited to new technologies like crypto,” the senior official noted.

“As I’ve been speaking to, we’re looking to make significant systemic changes to the regulatory structure that governs illicit finance. We’re looking to increase the use of law enforcement tools to go after corrupt actors. We’re looking to improve upon US foreign assistance as a tool and increase the role that anticorruption plays in our day-to-day diplomatic work in bilateral engagements, in multilateral fora,” the official added.