President Donald Trump signed into law a rollback of the Dodd-Frank Act, repealing the SEC rule requiring oil, gas and mining companies to disclose their foreign payments. The administration said the move would help U.S. competitiveness abroad, and Mr. Trump said “we’re bringing back jobs, big-league.” However, experts said the repeal hurts the U.S. fight against corruption.

Dan Zitting, chief product officer for risk and compliance software-provider ACL, said the repeal “is an unfortunate change in direction” on corruption, while acknowledging that substantial bribery and corruption on the books of natural-resource companies masquerade as governmental fees, taxes or permits, and that these payments are the cost of winning business in many countries.

He added: “With the disclosure rule killed, a good opportunity for materially beneficial transparency in the battle against global corruption will die with it.”