President Trump’s recent executive order to halt investigations and enforcement actions under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) for a 180-day review raises questions for American executives about how their companies should adapt. Trump claims the FCPA, which makes it unlawful for U.S. individuals or companies to bribe foreign officials for the purpose of obtaining business, makes U.S. companies less competitive than international counterparts.

Even though the executive order implementing the pause is temporary, it could signal a broader sea change in how the United States approaches corporate anti-bribery enforcement. So how should U.S. business leaders navigate a potential world without the FCPA, or with a weakened or selectively enforced FCPA? Does Trump’s executive order give them license to engage in a more transactional manner with foreign governments – or, more likely, loosen their compliance work that verifies they aren’t doing so? The answer is no. Even if the FCPA is scrapped or watered down, legal experts believe companies should not alter their approach to anti-bribery compliance, for several reasons. They could still run afoul of many other anti-bribery laws, and the FCPA may yet survive in different form and be enforced in certain contexts. Ultimately, a weaker or nonexistent FCPA is actually more likely to benefit foreign companies, and worsen the business climate for American ones. It’s in the interest of U.S. firms to follow the law – and in the interests of the United States to keep it on the books.

Corruption Is Still a Crime

Attorneys who advise leading multinational and U.S. businesses agree that even if the Department of Justice doesn’t enforce the FCPA, numerous other enforcement authorities could press charges against companies who engage in bribery or attempt to. “Just because there is a 180-day pause doesn’t mean the underlying conduct is not subject to criminal prosecutions from state attorneys general, foreign regulators, and civil enforcement agencies,” Grant Vinik, a former white-collar criminal defense lawyer and previous counsel to the U.S. Senate, said in an interview. Bribery laws such as the Foreign Extortion Prevention Act are still on the books. So, too, are state-level laws, meaning some state attorneys general could get creative in bringing FCPA-type cases against companies.

Companies might also find themselves facing civil charges related to bribery. The FCPA is jointly enforced by the DOJ, which oversees criminal law, and the Securities and Exchange Commission, which manages civil enforcement of bribery-related offenses. Finally, foreign jurisdictions have similar antibribery laws – with extraterritorial reach. In fact, according to the University of Basel’s Mark Pieth , many wealthy nations have based their equivalent laws on the FCPA itself. These nations have “the ability to prosecute foreign companies operating in their countries for acts committed in a third country,” Pieth says.

Poppy Alexander, a partner at Whistleblower Partners, LLP who represents whistleblowers reporting corporate FCPA violations, echoes this thinking. “Bribes are generally illegal everywhere,” Alexander notes, “so it’s not in a company’s best interest to put themselves in the legal crosshairs of foreign jurisdictions throughout the world.”

FCPA: On the Rocks, But Still On the Books

Companies should also keep in mind that the executive order is only pausing the law, not eliminating it, and the statute of limitations is five years, with the possibility of extension. So, the following administration could crack down on FCPA violations in their first year in office.

Then, there’s the related possibility that after 180 days, the Trump administration will enforce the FCPA in ways that advance its geopolitical interests. Seth DuCharme, who served as Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General in Trump’s first administration and is now a partner at Bracewell, LLP, says the administration could use the FCPA to enhance charges that would fit into the president’s “America First” narrative—for instance, to pressure Latin American cartels, whom Trump has already designated as foreign terrorist organizations . DuCharme explains that the administration might pass on more traditional FCPA enforcement, but still carry out the law for businesses whose work “touches on a national security or transnational organized crime priority, and happen to accept money or make payments to a company in Central America with ties to cartels.” In such a hypothetical, “prosecutors could use the FCPA as a tack-on charge to material support to terrorism and criminal sanctions violations.”

So FCPA could remain one of the administration’s weapons in areas of the world where they are especially focused on exerting power. DuCharme says he’s advising his clients with business dealings in Latin America that their attention to compliance needs to go up, not down, whether FCPA is on pause or not.

The Bigger Picture

Experts also posited that the Trump administration has it wrong when it comes to who benefits from pausing FCPA enforcement. “Unfortunately, the beneficiaries are corrupt foreign officials and unscrupulous foreign companies,” according to Alexander, who expects the executive order to worsen these actors’ behavior. “Most of the companies held liable under FCPA in the past are foreign companies – such as the 2016 $4.5 billion dollar settlement with the Brazilian Odebrecht – so the competitive advantages argument for U.S. companies makes no sense.”

There’s a deeper point here: Bribery weakens the markets in which companies operate. As Vinik argues, stable and prosperous markets rely on the rule of law. Companies may envision some short-term gain in loosening anti-bribery compliance, but in the long run, upholding norms that prioritize fairness over favoritism, and rule of law over rule of money and power, is in any executive’s best interest.

Trump’s actions shouldn’t change the way companies approach anti-bribery compliance. Ultimately, the pause of the FCPA is likely to help foreign firms, creating more competition and more risk for the very American companies Trump claims he’s trying to protect.