“America First” – Rights Last?, Daily Brief April 30, 2025

To say Trump’s “America First foreign policy” is grim news for human rights around the world may elicit reactions of non-surprise from many.

They would argue human rights have never played a leading role in US foreign policy. Trump’s “America First” is just a more open admission of what’s been a guiding rule for one rights-abusing US administration after another for decades.

It’s a fair argument to make. Indeed, Human Rights Watch’s research on US policies and actions over the years can offer evidence for it.

However, there’s an important shift happening in Washington right now that may get overlooked by such a dismissive argument. It lies in the details of how US foreign policy is created and implemented, in the structure of the State Department itself. The changes now underway in that structure are deeply troubling and could have longer-term implications globally.

Last week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced a “comprehensive reorganization plan” to align with the Trump’s “America First foreign policy.” Some offices are being eliminated or having their budgets and staff cut drastically. The functions of these offices will be dispersed to other units and/or downgraded, perhaps to the point of irrelevancy.

We’ve already seen how this administration’s sweeping foreign aid cuts have been catastrophic for many people around the world. Gutting US foreign assistance has terminated thousands of programs that supported human rights defenders and independent media. It also cut many programs that provided lifesaving humanitarian assistance.

The new State Department structure risks spreading further damage. It eliminates several human rights-focused offices and senior positions. These include things like the Office of Global Women’s Issues and the Office of Global Criminal Justice.  

Now, some functions of the Office of Global Criminal Justice are expected to be moved to the Office of the Legal Adviser at the State Department. So, what’s happening may sound like just a rearrangement of the bureaucratic furniture.

But there’s an important difference. The Office of the Legal Adviser does not have a policymaking role, so this shift is a kind of downgrade.

And this matters, because the specialized expertise of the Office of Global Criminal Justice has been key to decades-long efforts to advance justice for atrocity crimes in US policy and diplomacy.

It begs the question: who inside the State Department policymaking machinery is going to be pushing for such things now?

These changes – and others, detailed here – suggest a significant realignment away from support for universal human rights and international justice.

Of course, no US administration has ever fully lived up to international human rights standards or even its own declared values on human rights.

But under both Republican and Democrat administrations, the State Department provided critical funding to human rights defenders. It promoted independent media, championed some core women’s rights issues, and supported justice for victims of atrocity crimes.

It’s too simplistic to dismiss what’s happening now in the State Department by saying US foreign policy was never “human rights first” under any administration. Human rights were always at least some part of the mix.

Now, the fear is, “America First” could mean human rights last – in other words, not at all.