Donald Trump’s election as the next president of the United States is likely to make compliance officers’ jobs both much harder and much easier according to commentators; fewer rules to comply with in many areas but a wholesale dismantling of free trade agreements means compliance with tariffs and major enforcement costs. The shift in the regulatory landscape that a Trump administration will bring will be most marked in the United States., but changes will affect compliance officers in the United Kingdom and Europe who will have to deal with them whether they work for a multi-national company, a U.S. company or simply a company that does business in the United States.
But there are already suggestions that some of Trump’s policies—those few that were disclosed during the campaign—may already be being dropped. “It’s not clear as yet what the change [to his policies] may be,” said David Robson, Head of Research & Development at Wilmington’s International Compliance Training. “But it seems to be seeping out already. From my own point of view (and politics aside) I knew little about what the actual policies of the delegates were, save from wanting to build a massive wall across the Mexican border and to ban Muslims entering the country. But, according to press reports, the latter has now been removed from his official website. Much of the rest resembled what we saw in the U.K. [during the Brexit debates]: rhetoric and insults.”
