Monday Morning Commentary: Why Kleptocracy is the Right Term For the Trump Administration

As President Donald Trump’s second term unfolds, a growing number of journalists, scholars, and democracy advocates are describing his administration not merely as authoritarian or corrupt, but as a full-fledged kleptocracy—a government in which those in power systematically use public office for private gain.

The term has deep roots in political science, but its application to the United States marks a profound shift in how observers understand the nature of Trump’s rule. 

Among the most prominent voices making that case is Pulitzer Prize–winning historian and journalist Anne Applebaum, whose recent Atlantic article, “Kleptocracy, Inc.,” chronicles what she calls America’s “revolutionary change” toward the habits and corrupt practices of autocratic regimes like Russia and China.

Applebaum argues that “we are living through a revolutionary change, a broad shift away from the transparency and accountability mandated by most modern democracies, and toward the opaque habits and corrupt practices of the autocratic world.” 

In her view, Trump’s second term has completed a process that began during his first presidency: the replacement of a constitutional, merit-based administrative state with one built on loyalty, money, and personal enrichment.

Applebaum’s reporting details an unmistakable pattern—one in which the president’s private business interests merge with the functions of the state. 

As new controversy swirled in Washington this week, President Trump once again blurred the line between public power and personal interest. Just days after pardoning Binance founder Changpeng Zhao—whose crypto firm had heavily promoted a Trump-linked digital currency—the president attended a private reception at Mar-a-Lago with Zhao’s associates and senior administration officials from the Treasury Department. 

The event, billed as a celebration of “financial freedom,” came as Trump’s aides continued drafting new regulations expected to loosen federal oversight of cryptocurrency exchanges.

In the same week that he pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao and hosted a private Mar-a-Lago reception with Zhao’s associates and top Treasury officials, Trump continued to intertwine his personal business dealings with the functions of government.

“No previous inhabitant of the White House would have wanted to be seen doing personal business with companies from countries that seek to influence American foreign policy,” Applebaum wrote, noting that the Constitution explicitly forbids officials from accepting gifts or payments from foreign governments. But in Trump’s America, such conflicts have become normalized—and even celebrated.

The blurring of public and private interests is not confined to golf tournaments. Applebaum points to a cascade of actions that have eroded traditional safeguards against corruption. Trump ordered the shutdown of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, fired top officials in the Office of Government Ethics and the Office of Special Counsel, and slashed the budgets of the IRS and the Department of Justice in ways that, as Applebaum puts it, will make “prosecuting crooked officials” and identifying tax fraud “more difficult.”

She reports that Trump suspended enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which had long prohibited U.S. companies from bribing foreign officials, and halted Treasury’s enforcement of the Corporate Transparency Act—a law designed to expose shell companies and money laundering. Together, these moves dismantle much of the country’s anti-corruption infrastructure and signal a government increasingly comfortable with self-dealing.

Scholars define “kleptocracy” as a system of government in which political leaders use public office to enrich themselves and their allies, often by exploiting state institutions and eroding oversight. The term, derived from the Greek klepto (“to steal”) and -cracy (“rule”), has long been used to describe regimes like those of Vladimir Putin or Mobutu Sese Seko. Increasingly, experts and journalists say the word now applies uncomfortably well to the United States under Trump.

Historically, the term was reserved for states like Mobutu’s Zaire or Putin’s Russia—places where corruption was not incidental but constitutive of political power. In the 21st century, however, scholars have observed a transformation. Modern kleptocracy, as detailed in the Journal of Democracy and by organizations like the National Endowment for Democracy, is increasingly transnational. It depends on global finance, shell companies, luxury real estate, and permissive Western institutions to launder both money and reputation.

In this light, Applebaum’s indictment is not rhetorical but analytical. The United States, she argues, now displays the same features that once defined post-Soviet and petrostate kleptocracies: the merging of public office and private profit, the systematic neutering of oversight, and the normalization of conflicts of interest.

In her ongoing “Kleptocracy Tracker,” Applebaum documents week-by-week examples of how this new political economy operates. On Oct. 18, the Department of Homeland Security spent $172 million on private jets for Secretary Kristi Noem and other senior officials—“the latest in a series of lavish expenditures,” she notes, that have drawn scrutiny. Trump’s nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Chemical Safety, a former chemical industry lobbyist, is poised for Senate confirmation.

Two days later, Fox News host Laura Ingraham joined Donald Trump Jr. as a director of a special-purpose acquisition company seeking to raise $260 million. On Oct. 21, Applebaum reported that Trump demanded $230 million in “compensation” from the Department of Justice for investigations into his conduct—a request that will be reviewed by his own appointees and former defense attorneys. That same day, Trump fired the inspector general of the Export-Import Bank, part of what Applebaum describes as the “removal of nearly two dozen watchdogs” across federal agencies.

The following week, the president pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, convicted of violating anti–money laundering laws, shortly after the crypto firm promoted a Trump-linked stablecoin. The pardon cleared the way for Binance to resume U.S. operations.

Applebaum notes that Trump’s conduct is not just personally corrupt but systemically transformative. 

“The old administrative state, based on meritocracy and loyalty to the Constitution, is being replaced by a kleptocratic one,” she writes.

The pattern extends across the government. Kash Patel, Trump’s new FBI director, disclosed in his confirmation hearings that he holds between $1 million and $5 million in stock from Shein, a Chinese e-commerce company accused of using forced labor, and that he “would not divest.” Patel has also consulted for a foreign arms conglomerate that, according to former Sen. J.D. Vance, has “ties to the inner circle of Russian President Vladimir Putin.” Despite these conflicts, the Senate confirmed him.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk, whom Applebaum calls “America’s premier oligarch,” has amassed unprecedented influence over federal agencies that regulate his own companies – even as he since fallen from grace. Massive layoffs at oversight bodies have weakened investigations into Tesla, SpaceX, and Neuralink, while government contracts for Starlink and Tesla have proliferated. One Commerce Department official resigned, calling the favoritism “yet another in a long line of betrayals by Washington.”

Trump, Applebaum argues, “isn’t just disregarding old norms for his own sake. He’s making it easier for others to cut corners too.” From shell companies purchasing Trump-branded real estate to the administration’s decision to abandon anti-money-laundering rules, the architecture of corruption is now built into governance itself.

For decades, analysts used the term “kleptocracy” to describe regimes abroad. The early 2000s saw its application to oil-rich autocracies and post-Soviet oligarchies. By the 2010s, scholars like Alexander Cooley and John Heathershaw described a “second wave” of kleptocracy that relied on Western financial systems, law firms, and real estate markets to legitimize stolen wealth.

Applebaum’s reporting suggests that the United States has now internalized this model. In her words, “American government, American foreign policy, and American trade policy are slowly being transformed, not to benefit Americans but to benefit the president, his family, and his friends.”

The implications extend beyond ethics. When the administration lifts sanctions on foreign oligarchs, dismantles transparency laws, or allows corporate lobbying to shape tariffs, it alters the structure of governance itself. Policy becomes indistinguishable from profit motive. Accountability becomes impossible when the institutions meant to enforce it have been defunded or staffed with loyalists.

The danger, Applebaum warns, is not just financial but democratic. Kleptocracy corrodes the very idea of public service and rule of law. When citizens perceive government as a mechanism for self-enrichment, trust collapses. Elections become contests of patronage rather than accountability.

“The presence in the American government of so many people, most notably the president, whose financial interests can be directly and immediately affected by their political decisions means that we now need a different way of analyzing American policy,” she writes. Questions once confined to foreign affairs—Who profits from a deal? What promises have been made?—must now be asked of domestic policy as well.

This redefinition of governance is precisely why “kleptocracy” is the right term. It captures not only the scale of corruption but the transformation of corruption into system. What was once scandalous is now routine. What was once illegal is now policy.

The courts, Congress, and the press have thus far failed to constrain Trump’s conflicts of interest. If kleptocracy thrives in secrecy and impunity, she argues, its antidote must be exposure and civic resistance.

“It’s now up to the media, to outside organizations, and to whistleblowers to keep reporting the slide into kleptocracy to the public and to the courts,” she wrote. “Only voters can stop them.”

The protests last week point to the depth of concern in America – but relying on protests is at best fraught.

“Protests could fizzle out, as often happens, because mocking, angry, and, in this case, scatological propaganda discourages people from joining them,” she writes. 

She added, “Or the official reaction to them could turn uglier: Anyone who objects to the Party or the Leader will be described as not really American, not eligible for the rights of a citizen, not really entitled to protest at all. In authoritarian countries, state institutions—tax authorities, regulators, political police—would then begin to pursue them.”

She ominously warns, “That isn’t supposed to happen in America, but then, this isn’t an ordinary American political cycle.”

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