International Adoption fees increased by $500 for Americans seeking to adopt overseas as 2017 falls to 4,600

Ending International Adoptions. The Trump Administration has imposed new fees and regulations that threaten to end international adoptions. The U.S. State Department imposed a new $500 “monitoring and oversight fee for adoptive families.” The new fee went into effect Feb. 15. The fee will fund a new agency called the Intercountry Adoption Accreditation and Maintenance Entity that will monitor international adoption agencies. Agencies will now have to file for accreditation every four years. Chuck Johnson, president of the National Council for Adoption (NCFA), believes the new regulations could bring an end to international adoptions. In 2004, U.S. families adopted more than 22,000 children. In 2017, that number had fallen to about 4,600.

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http://www.rferl.org/content/armenia_considers_changing_adoption_procedures_amid_corruption_allegations/24336795.html
Excerpts of this article from Radio Free Europe:
Shadowy Middlemen

It will decide in the coming months whether it will be necessary to amend Armenia's Family Code, which would require parliamentary approval, or to simply change existing procedures, which could be enacted by the government without legislative action.

Under the existing rules, the Armenian Ministry of Labor and Social Issues draws up and keeps a national registry of children available for domestic and foreign adoption.

The list is supposed to be accessible to all prospective adoptive parents. But in practice, even government agencies say they have trouble accessing
Specifically, the report cited a sample contract signed by one U.S. agency, Hopscotch Adoptions, based in High Point, North Carolina, which assists Americans wishing to adopt Armenian and Georgian children.

The contract, offered to a potential client in the United States in 2007, explained that almost $5,000 of more than $30,000 charged by Hopscotch for every adoption would be spent on “gifts to foreign service providers and government functionaries performing ministerial tasks as an offer of thanks for prompt service.”

It claimed that such gifts are common in Armenia and Georgia and do not violate U.S. law.