Trusted Foreign Auditing Act of 2025

HR 4616, the Trusted Foreign Auditing Act of 2025, prohibits U.S. stock trading for companies headquartered in countries identified as national security threats if they use foreign accounting firms tied to those countries. It directly affects U.S. companies (called "covered issuers") based in "covered countries" that retain a "compromised auditor" - defined as a foreign accounting branch or subsidiary controlled by a government on the National Intelligence Director’s threat list or a specific "covered nation" under defense law. The bill adds a new provision to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act requiring the Securities and Exchange Commission to ban trading in such companies’ securities if they rely on these compromised auditors for required audits. This policy change creates a direct link between national security threat assessments and financial market access for foreign-linked U.S. companies.