A spokeswoman for the U.S. Treasury Department said Friday (Dec. 3) that it will announce a series of sanctions next week to highlight the U.S. Democracy Summit on the 9th and 10th and to sanction those engaged in corruption, gross human rights abuses and the undermining of democracy, among other things.
According to Reuters, a Treasury Department spokesperson said, “The Treasury Department will take a series of actions to designate individuals engaged in malicious activities that undermine democracy and democratic institutions around the world, including corruption, repression, organized crime, and gross human rights violations.”
The Treasury Department declined to provide specific information on those facing sanctions.
The Treasury Department will also announce a series of proposals designed to close loopholes that allow corrupt officials to exploit the real estate market and to address gaps in corporate transparency networks. These loopholes allow corruption to flourish and illicit proceeds to flow into the United States.
The Treasury Department’s announcement comes as President Joe Biden will convene hundreds of leaders from around the world for an online U.S. Summit for Democracy on Dec. 9 and 10.
Next week’s Summit for Democracy will be a test of President Biden’s commitment at the beginning of his presidency, the report said. In his first foreign policy address since taking office in January, Biden announced that he would lead the United States back to global leadership in the face of authoritarian forces led by China and Russia.
The State Department’s invitation list indicates that 110 countries will then participate in the two-day democracy summit. The White House announced in an Aug. 11 announcement that a second face-to-face democracy summit would take place in about a year’s time, following the first.
The list, announced on Nov. 23, includes Taiwan, but not China or Russia. China and Russia thus denounced the U.S. as divisive, and the White House countered.
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki stressed at a news conference Thursday that the summit was intended to bring together leaders from government, civil society and the private sector “representing different democratic experiences around the world” to discuss how to “protect democracy around the world and support democracy around the world. democracy around the world.”
“We have nothing to apologize for, no matter what the criticism from any country in the world is.” Psaki said.
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