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Floor Speech
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Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. President, so I am going to reserve the right to object, and let me say I am doing this somewhat reluctantly because I fully acknowledge the Senator from Maryland is correct, that corruption is a scourge. There are many countries going the wrong direction. It is fully in the national interest of the United States to combat the corruption that we see, and he has proposed a completely good-faith, thoughtful approach to dealing with some aspects of the corruption that we find.
But I have concerns about the particular way in which he does this, and I would like to work with him and see if we can find common ground on this.
Let me explain my concern.
The bill would task the State Department with annually ranking every country in the world, including our partners and allies and friends and even, maybe, countries that aren't necessarily so friendly but, at the moment, are maybe working with us. It requires that this ranking of countries, based on how corrupt they are, be then made public. That is for good intentions, but I am concerned that in the process of naming and shaming countries that are deemed to be in the wrong place, it could complicate efforts that we are making, whether it is our Treasury or our State Department, with very legitimate objectives that we have that are unrelated to the corruption problem that the country faces.
For instance, depending on the country, maybe we want them to be more cooperative in the global coalition against Russia to defend Ukraine. Let's be honest. There are corruption problems in Ukraine also, but we are defending Ukraine, quite rightly. Maybe it is about joining the administration's Indo-Pacific economic framework, which is very important for a variety of reasons, but maybe there are corruption problems.
This seems like a bit of a blunt tool that requires this labeling and naming and shaming, and it doesn't provide the discretion for the administration to say: You know, maybe right now isn't the right time to rub their noses in one of their problems because we need them for something else.
So I guess what I would say is, look, fighting corruption is absolutely important, and the Senator from Maryland has been consistent and thoughtful on this, but it is not our only--and sometimes it is not our most important--objective with another country.
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