US Government Under Trump Moves To Redefine ‘Concept Of Human Rights’
For decades, reports intended to guide congressional decisions on foreign aid and security assistance have highlighted government actions such as restricting freedom of movement and peaceful assembly.
The United States government under President Donald Trump has moved to redefine the concept of “human rights” in the country’s legal system.
According to media reports, the Trump government is substantially scaling back the State Department’s annual reports on international human rights to remove long standing criticisms of abuses such as harsh prison conditions, government corruption and restrictions on participation in the political process.
For decades, reports intended to guide congressional decisions on foreign aid and security assistance have highlighted government actions such as restricting freedom of movement and peaceful assembly.
However, these reports will no longer condemn practices like holding political prisoners without due process.
According to an editing memo and other documents obtained by NPR, State Department employees are directed to “streamline” the reports by stripping them down to only that which is legally required. The memo says the changes aim to align the reports with current U.S. policy and “recently issued Executive Orders.”
Officially called “Country Reports on Human Rights Practices,” the annual documents are required, by statute, to be a “full and complete report regarding the status of internationally recognized human rights.”
Human rights defenders say the cuts amount to an American retreat from its position as the world’s human rights watchdog.
“What this is, is a signal that the United States is no longer going to [pressure] other countries to uphold those rights that guarantee civic and political freedoms — the ability to speak, to express yourself, to gather, to protest, to organise,” said Paul O’Brien, executive director of Amnesty International, USA.
A spokesperson for the State Department declined to comment on the memo or the human rights reports. NPR confirmed the memo’s authenticity with two sources close to the process.
The reports, released in March or April most years, are highly anticipated by foreign leaders and diplomats with a stake in how their countries are portrayed. The 2024 reports were initially completed in January, before President Trump took office, but they’ve been re-edited by the new administration.
State Department sources say the revised versions won’t be released until May.
The documents NPR reviewed confirm reporting by Politico that reports of violence and discrimination against LGBTQ+ people will be removed, along with all references to DEI.
By law, the State Department releases annual reports for every country, and they traditionally follow one basic outline. The cuts ordered in the Trump administration memo are not targeted at specific countries. Rather, they eliminate entire categories of abuses from all the reports.
But some deletions are more noteworthy than others. The Trump administration recently negotiated the transfer of immigrants from the U.S. into El Salvador’s notorious prison system.
In a draft of the forthcoming report on that country reviewed by NPR, the section on prison conditions is erased. The only remnants of those violations are reports on prison deaths that fall into the category of “extrajudicial killings” and a mention of abuse by prison guards in a legislatively mandated section on “Torture and Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.”
In the report on Hungary, a marked-up version of which was distributed as a model for how to apply the new directives, the section titled “Corruption in Government” is struck out. Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been called an authoritarian, and previous reports have noted restrictions to civil liberties. President Trump has called him “a great man and a great leader in Europe.”
András Lederer from Hungary’s oldest and largest human rights group, the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, told NPR that the State Department’s new policy weakens the position of human rights defenders in countries that have a problematic track record on these issues.
“You’re removing pressure, and it definitely sends the message to the perpetrators that this is not important for [the U.S.] anymore,” Lederer said.
People who specialize in human rights work told NPR they worry about the effect the cuts will have on the documents’ influence within the international community.
“You can’t overstate the value in the real world of the annual State Department human rights reports being credible and impartial,” said Christopher Le Mon, until January a deputy assistant secretary in the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour.
“You also can’t overstate the damage it will do to that credibility if the Trump administration’s edits are seen to diminish — not just the scope of what are defined as human rights, but also if those edits are seen to play favourites.”
Former Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, complained during the first Trump administration about what he called “a proliferation of human rights,” and he moved to pare them back.
He formed a Commission on Unalienable Rights that focused on Revolution-era and post-World War II notions of rights, de-emphasising issues like discrimination and reproductive rights, putting more focus on religious freedom and the right to private property.
The memo reviewed by NPR outlines changes that are far more sweeping.
In 2013, then-Sen. Marco Rubio underscored the importance of these audits, saying they shed light on “foreign governments’ failure to respect” citizens’ fundamental rights … from the sexual exploitation of women and children to the denial of political rights to minorities.”
