The U.S. Government is Now Percieved Globally as More Corrupt

The U.S. is not the least corrupt country world any longer according to the recent 2018 annual Corruption Perceptions Index from Transparency International. Out of the 180 independent sovereign countries measured in the study, the index puts the U.S. in 22nd place behind its European ally France and ahead of the United Arab Emirates in the Middle East. Countries perceived to be the least corrupt, most of them from the developed world, include Denmark, New Zealand, Finland, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, Netherlands, Canada, and Luxembourg.

According to Zoe Reiter, Transparency International’s acting representative to the United States, one of the varied factors of the U.S. decreasing ranking in global corruption perception is due to eroding public trust in public institutions as well as a lack of critical public institutional reforms. Reiter indicated that American politicians such as President Donald Trump are a personified symptom of that particular erosion.

Global rankings for the United States have been decreasing in recent years on a wide variety of issues such as healthcare, education, free press, democracy, life expectancy,  and overall happiness.