Marco Rubio touched on a range of topics during his first international trip as U.S. secretary of state in early February. The visit to Central America and the Caribbean included conversations about the Panama Canal in Panama, nuclear energy in El Salvador and he fight against fentanyl trafficking in Guatemala.
Curiously absent from Rubio’s agenda, however, was a longstanding U.S. priority in the region: the fight against corruption. The change in policy became even more clear on Feb. 10, when President Donald Trump signaled plans to suspend enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits U.S. companies from bribing foreign officials. This shift is a mistake that will make the Trump administration’s goal of tackling migration far more difficult.
The instinct to give up on the fight against corruption is, in some ways, understandable. As Rubio suggested in an interview with Fox News, policing foreign officials might “upset the host government” and derail cooperation on Washington’s other priorities.
