The US fell to its worst-ever position in a global index measuring perceptions of public-sector corruption.
The country has been on a negative trend in rankings; it took its latest hit after the Trump administration last year paused investigations into corporate foreign bribery.
But “we can’t blame everything on [Donald] Trump because there were concerning reforms that started before him,” said the head of Transparency International, the group behind the index, pointing to ethics scandals at the US Supreme Court.
It mirrored a worsening in the global average corruption score — the first in more than a decade — exacerbated by drops among large Western democracies including Canada and the UK, while Denmark, Finland, and Singapore were rated as least corrupt.
