The United States has officially withdrawn from the Group of States Against Corruption (GRECO), the leading European anti-corruption monitoring body operating under the auspices of the Council of Europe. The decision became known on Tuesday after Washington notified the organization of its departure. This step fits into the broader strategy of Donald Trump's administration to systematically pull the US out of various international and multilateral institutions that the White House accuses of overstepping their mandates, bureaucratic inefficiency, and failing to align with national interests.

Background and Isolation Alongside Russia and Belarus

The Council of Europe expressed regret over the decision, noting that Washington had participated in GRECO's work since 2000 and made a valuable expert contribution to combating corruption. It is worth noting that throughout the history of the monitoring body, established in 1999 to oversee compliance with anti-corruption standards, only a few countries have ever chosen to leave voluntarily. Prior to the United States, only Russia and Belarus had withdrawn from GRECO, making the White House's current move unprecedented for Western democracies. Strasbourg emphasized that the structure remains open to resuming cooperation in the future.

A Wider Wave of Departures from International Structures

The decision regarding GRECO is not an isolated episode but continues a large-scale trend of rolling back U.S. multilateral engagement. Just a week earlier, it was revealed that Washington refused to invite representatives of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) to observe the November midterm congressional elections, a sharp departure from previous practice. Previously, the United States also withdrew from the World Health Organization, the UN Human Rights Council, and the Venice Commission, the Council of Europe’s advisory body on constitutional law.

Contradictory Data

While official representatives of the Council of Europe confirmed receiving the notification of the U.S. withdrawal on Tuesday, anonymous sources within American diplomatic circles clarified that the formal statement was actually submitted on Monday. The discrepancy in dates is purely technical, related to internal bureaucratic procedures for transmitting documents between Washington and the headquarters in Strasbourg, but the fact of institutional severance remains unchanged and is confirmed by both sides.