Americans see more corruption in Trump era

WASHINGTON: Americans believe US society has become markedly more corrupt in the year since President Donald Trump rose to power, according to a survey released on Tuesday.

Nearly six in 10 say they believe corruption has increased in the last 12 months, up from about a third in January 2016, according to Transparency International, a global corruption watchdog.

In the latest survey, 44 percent of Americans say corruption is endemic in the White House, up eight percentage points and overtaking Congress as the part of government most frequently cited as corrupt, the survey found.

"Our elected officials are failing to build back trust in Washington’s ability to serve the people and still appear to represent elite corporate interests," Transparency’s US Representative Zoe Reiter said in a statement.

Nearly seven in 10 also believe the government is failing to fight corruption, up from half of respondents in 2016. Trump took office on a pledge to "drain the swamp" in Washington, and rein in corporate lobbying.

But Trump did not separate himself from his global business empire, and critics have denounced what they say are unprecedented conflicts of interest for the president as government policies frequently are liable to affect his family’s bottom line. Transparency said its survey was based on computer-assisted telephone interviews conducted with 1,005 adults between October and November and had a margin of error of 3.1 percent. —AFP|