The US withdrew from the Council of Europeʼs anti-corruption body. The State Department explained the move

The US administration has withdrawn from the Group of States against Corruption (GRECO), the leading monitoring body of the Council of Europe.

AR writes about this.

The State Department said the watchdog “does not provide tangible benefits to US national security”, adding that “the era of writing checks to international bureaucracies is over”.

The statement emphasized that the United States currently prioritizes other, more productive tools to combat corruption, including visa restrictions, sanctions, and criminal investigations into corruption schemes.

The Council of Europe also reacted to this decision and stated that the US had made a valuable contribution to GRECOʼs work and to the exchange of experience, and added that it remained open to resuming cooperation in the future.

Over the entire time the organization has existed (since 1999), only two countries have left its membership: Russia and Belarus.

• In January 2025, Donald Trump signed an executive order to withdraw from the WHO on the first day of his second term, accusing the organization of mishandling the COVID-19 pandemic, failing to reform, and relying on “undue political influence”. That same year, Washington withdrew from UNESCO.

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