Federal agents recently stormed three offices belonging to machinery giant Caterpillar. The raid was broadcast live on cable television networks, among them CNBC.

What brought the FDIC, IRS, and Commerce Department knocking on March 2 was not confirmed at the time of this writing, but financial documents and electronic export information were reportedly seized.

Keep the images of those federal raids in your head. We’ll get back to them. First, however, we detour to the current climate of deregulation.

Regulatory change has been fast and furious ever since President Donald J. Trump took office and the 115th Congress gaveled into session. A quick recap:

President Trump signed an Executive Order requiring that government agencies establish a Regulatory Reform Task Force to evaluate existing regulations and identify those that should be repealed or modified.

Another Executive Order requires that for every new Federal regulation, two existing ones be eliminated.

The new Secretary of the Treasury was tasked by the President to conduct “a full review of the burdensome regulations required by the Dodd-Frank Act.”

The President signed legislation that repeals the Securities and Exchange Commission’s extractive payments rule for oil, gas, and mining companies. It required public companies in those industries to annually report payments they, subsidiaries, and entities they control make to governments for extraction and development rights.

Over at the SEC, Acting Chairman Michael Piwowar announced that the agency’s much-maligned pay ratio rule, which he says is causing “unanticipated compliance difficulties,” is under reconsideration. A new public comment period is underway.

The rule, pushed to the SEC by Dodd-Frank and adopted in August 2015, requires a public company to disclose the ratio of the median of the annual total compensation of all employees to the annual total compensation of the chief executive officer.

Also under consideration: a potential repeal of the SEC’s conflict minerals rule (a requirement that companies disclose their use of certain minerals mined from the war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo). The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Financial Stability Oversight Council are in Congressional crosshairs and could be overhauled.

Federal rules may melt away, but corporate responsibilities do not. The requirements intended for systemic protection also ensure that individual companies remain well-run and scandal free. In reality, compliance departments should be ramped up, not stripped down.

All of this may sound fine and dandy if you are a public company hampered by what critics describe as a “tsunami” of post-crisis federal regulation. The idea that, over time, outdated and ineffective rules will be plucked like weeds is music to those drowning in compliance obligations.

Be careful what you wish for.

While we won’t argue against many of the benefits that come with deregulation, the corporate landscape is far too complicated for a complete celebration.

To start with, it is nearly impossible these days to find a publicly traded company that doesn’t have a multinational presence. Trimming U.S. regulations loses luster when complimentary rules abroad—and what can be stricter, more costly variations—are not going away any time soon.

The Basel III international accord for banks may be troubled, but it remains a force to be reckoned with. Like the Republican rule rollback proposed in the Congressional CHOICE Act? You may still balk at the more stringent leverage ratio that fills the void.

Don’t expect corporate sustainability and transparency efforts to dissolve away any time soon. Many large companies, bowing to customers and shareholders, already have vigorous corporate social responsibility programs around a variety of issues, most of which are not areas that are legislated.

No matter what happens in the United States, European Union officials have agreed on their own regulatory framework regarding conflict minerals. Getting rid of the extractive payments rule does little to change international variations in more than 30 countries, including Canada, Norway, and throughout the European Union.

In a recent paper, the International Corporate Governance Network noted that specific policy changes of the Trump administration “challenge or may contradict established principles of corporate governance and sustainability and present potential conundrums for companies and investors—and for standard setters and regulators who aim to attract inward investment whilst ensuring efficient markets.”

Those concerns overlay with renewed focus on securing long-term corporate sustainability in the face of short-term performance pressures.

“Investors and companies cannot simply focus on existing political requirements and regulations,” the paper says. “Rather companies and investors will need to anticipate long-term trends material to their companies—and develop their own views as what policy approaches are likely to be most—or least—durable over time.”

Federal rules may melt away, but corporate responsibilities do not. The requirements intended for systemic protection also ensure that individual companies remain well-run and scandal free. In reality, compliance departments should be ramped up, not stripped down.

Without the certainty of black-and-white, letter of the law to guide corporate behavior, it will be up to those individual institutions to create, maintain, and seek continual self-improvement through their own development of best practices. The minutiae of Dodd-Frank or SOX may not have been embraced, but should their goals go away?

No, we would argue, and juggling best practices with financial performance may be the biggest challenge yet. Succeed, and your company will be profitable and ethical and enjoy long-term success.

Fail? Well, remember those Caterpillar raids? Bad behavior will still be televised. Malfeasance will still make good newspaper content. Boycotts will always be a political weapon.

All the deregulation in the world isn’t going to dampen the bad press of Uber hiring a senior executive booted from Google over a sexual harassment allegation. You will still have heard about Yahoo’s massive data breach regardless of what’s in the Federal Register—class-action lawsuits guarantee that.

For most companies, reputation is among their most profitable assets. Doing business in a slightly less regulated world is not going to change that.

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