No Condemnation for ‘Israel’: What Happened to U.S. Advocacy for Human Rights?

Each year, the U.S. State Department releases a series of reports used as foreign policy tools to pressure various countries, most notably, the Religious Freedom and Human Rights reports.

The Human Rights Report documents abuses and signs of government corruption but tends to focus on countries hostile to Washington while overlooking repression in allied states. In practice, it serves as a “stick” or “carrot” in U.S. diplomacy.

However, with Donald Trump’s rise to power, his administration significantly scaled back these annual reports. It showed little interest in documenting abuses like torture in prisons, political repression, or state corruption.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the revisions, arguing that the reports had become platforms for critics of “Israel” who called for halting U.S. arms sales in response to “Israeli crackdowns” on Palestinians.

Has the Trump administration abandoned human rights and democracy worldwide to shield “Israel?” Or is this simply part of a broader U.S. shift under Trump—one that prioritizes money and leverage over human rights?

Ignoring Human Rights

NPR revealed it had obtained an official memo and supporting documents confirming a new shift in U.S. policy: State Department employees were instructed to simplify human rights reports on countries around the world.

The directive was to reduce these reports to “legal points only,” omitting details of abuses in prisons or repression of political opponents—meant to align with President Trump’s new policies and his executive orders.

According to NPR, the revised reports will no longer condemn governments for cracking down on peaceful protests or restricting freedoms. They will also stop highlighting issues such as the detention of political detainees without due process, interference in free elections, forced returns of asylum seekers to countries where they risk torture or persecution, or severe harassment of human rights organizations.

The Trump administration has also scaled back the reports used to guide congressional decisions on foreign aid, suggesting the State Department is rethinking its definition of human rights.

This move followed a March 19, 2025, Politico report stating that the Trump administration was cutting sections from the Human Rights Report related to women, people with disabilities, and the homosexual community.

Politico noted that the decision underscored President Trump’s disinterest in human rights, both at home and in foreign policy.

Historically, U.S. human rights reports have been used to criticize “adversaries” like Iran, North Korea, and China, and to pressure Arab states over violations. But many countries have rejected the reports, arguing that the U.S. lacks the moral authority to judge others, given its own rights issues, especially regarding Black and Muslim Americans.

Congress has long relied on these reports to shape decisions on foreign aid and military assistance.

Although the 2024 reports were completed in January 2025, before Trump took office, his administration has since edited them, and sources say the revised versions won’t be released until May 2025.

Recommendations Removed

On April 21, 2025, Fox News, a right-wing outlet aligned with the Trump administration, reported that the 2024 Human Rights Report had been restructured merely to eliminate redundancy.

According to the report, the new version would focus only on human rights violations, dropping what it described as a “long list of politically biased demands,” referring to the recommendations the U.S. State Department traditionally issued to repressive governments, urging them to halt their abuses.

Fox News quoted a senior State Department official as saying NPR’s claims that the report had been significantly pared down were “misleading and misguided.” The official insisted the changes aimed to streamline the report, enhance readability, ensure consistency with U.S. law, and refocus on core human rights issues, not to signal a policy shift.

However, documents reviewed by NPR and Politico reveal that the updated reports would eliminate references to violence and discrimination against homosexuals, as well as all mentions of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI), frameworks designed to ensure fair treatment and full participation of underrepresented or marginalized groups.

Also slated for removal are sections on violence and torture in foreign prisons and overall prison conditions. One reason: the Trump administration recently negotiated to transfer migrants from the U.S. to El Salvador’s notorious prison system. The draft report on El Salvador omitted the prison conditions section to avoid self-incrimination.

Other topics to be dropped include restrictions on internet freedom, forced medical or psychiatric practices, and government intrusion into personal privacy. The reports will also omit references to gender-based violence and threats against people with disabilities.

After President Trump publicly praised Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban—calling him “a great man and a great leader in Europe,” despite Orban being widely seen as a far-right authoritarian—the State Department removed the “Government Corruption” section from its report on Hungary. That section had previously described Orban as authoritarian and documented his crackdown on civil liberties.

Some legally mandated areas will still appear in the reports, such as war crimes, genocide, antisemitism, child marriage, labor rights, and press freedom, though not general freedom of expression for ordinary citizens.

Deaths in custody will be categorized as extrajudicial killings, and abuse by prison guards will fall under a legally required section on “torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.”

According to Politico, Trump and his aides view the human rights agenda as a hindrance to U.S. engagement on issues like trade. Many Trump allies also oppose references to abortion rights and women’s reproductive freedoms in the reports.

Two additional documents obtained by Politico show that many report sections have been renamed or relocated. For example, “Freedom to Participate in the Political Process” has been retitled “Security of the Person,” while “Freedom of Expression, Including for Members of the Press and Other Media” has been shortened to “Freedom of the Press.”

The original reports had dedicated sections on women’s rights, including subsections on rape, domestic violence, reproductive rights, female genital mutilation, and general discrimination. The new version will contain only one section titled “Coerced in Population Control,” which may touch on reproductive rights but omits broader challenges faced by women.

A section covering homosexual issues, including violence, harassment, legal gender recognition, and freedom of expression, has been entirely removed.

Also deleted are smaller sections detailing discrimination against Indigenous peoples, people with disabilities, and official corruption.

The updated report will retain some topics, such as refugee protections, child labor, religious freedom, select labor rights, and human trafficking.

Is ‘Israel’ the Reason?

In announcing the changes, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated on April 24, 2025, that he had decided to implement a “comprehensive restructuring” of the State Department, particularly the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor.

Explaining the downsizing of this bureau, responsible for producing the annual Human Rights Report, Rubio said, “The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor became a platform for left-wing activists to wage vendettas against ‘anti-woke’ leaders in nations such as Poland, Hungary, and Brazil, and to transform their hatred of Israel into concrete policies such as arms embargoes.”

According to The Intercept, Rubio’s accusation that the bureau had become a “hotbed of anti-Israel activism” baffled critics of the U.S. State Department’s handling of the Gaza war.

Their efforts to halt arms sales to “Israel” had failed even under President Biden’s Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, during whose tenure weapons transfers continued at an unprecedented pace in U.S. history.

Even the most outspoken critics of “Israel” in Congress never called for a blanket weapons embargo, but rather pushed, unsuccessfully, to block the sale of specific offensive weapons that had already caused mass innocent Palestinian lives.

Rubio’s statement, The Intercept noted, is a troubling signal that the Trump administration is working to disable one of the few remaining platforms within the government where critics of “Israel” can even be heard, even if their arguments were routinely ignored under both Biden and Trump.

“This ‘anti-Israel’ stuff is so deeply incorrect,” said Charles Blaha, who served as director of the human rights bureau’s office of security and human rights from 2016 until his 2023 retirement. “The tendency in the Department is exactly the opposite. The Department is pro-Israel to the point of overlooking gross violations of human rights. The Department closes its eyes to it.”

In its 2024 report, the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor did criticize Israeli Occupation’s crimes in Gaza, calling for the application of a U.S. law that prohibits aid to foreign military units involved in human rights violations. This sparked Israeli anger in April 2024.

That report—issued under the Biden administration—noted “credible reports” that “Israel” had carried out arbitrary or unlawful killings of Palestinians, including extrajudicial executions, as well as enforced disappearances, torture, and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment by government officials. Secretary Rubio has since removed those allegations.

Rubio is among the most ardently pro-”Israel” officials in the Trump administration, famously declaring that “Israel cannot be wrong” and that “God gave Palestine to the Jews.”

During the Gaza war, Rubio appeared in a video responding to an American activist who asked if he supported a ceasefire. He replied, “No, I won’t,” adding, “I want them to destroy every element of Hamas they can get their hands on,” refusing to acknowledge that “Israel” had killed thousands of Palestinian children.

Rubio has repeatedly accused American Jews of being “disloyal to Israel” and suggested they “hate their religion” because they vote Democrat. He has also called for sanctions against supporters of the BDS movement as part of what he described as “efforts to combat growing antisemitism.”

In its report issued April 29, 2025, Amnesty International lamented that “the world is witnessing a genocide live on screen” as Israeli Occupation forces operate in Gaza.

Governments have stood by, as if helpless, watching “Israel” kill thousands of Palestinian women and men, massacre entire families across generations, and destroy homes, livelihoods, hospitals, and schools, according to Amnesty.

The organization reiterated its accusation that “Israel” is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and hinted at the Trump administration’s complicity.

“Our research reveals that, for months, Israel has persisted in committing genocidal acts, fully aware of the irreparable harm it was inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza. It continued to do so in defiance of countless warnings about the catastrophic humanitarian situation and of legally binding decisions from the International Court of Justice [ICJ] ordering Israel to take immediate measures to enable the provision of humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza,” said Agnes Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International. 

American and Global Retreat

With the changes introduced by the Trump administration, human rights advocates are voicing concern over the integrity of the State Department’s annual report and whether it can still provide a comprehensive picture of any country’s human rights record.

They 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 organize,” said Paul O'Brien, executive director of Amnesty International, USA.

During the release of its annual report The State of the World’s Human Rights on April 29, 2025, Amnesty International cautioned that the Trump administration’s campaign against rights is accelerating harmful global trends, weakening international human rights protections, and putting billions of people at risk.

In its assessment of the situation in 150 countries, the organization said “this ‘Trump effect’ has compounded the damage done by other world leaders throughout 2024, eating away at decades of painstaking work to build up and advance universal human rights for all and accelerating humanity’s plunge into a brutal new era characterized by intermingling authoritarian practices and corporate greed.”

“One hundred days into his second term, President Trump has shown only utter contempt for universal human rights. His government has swiftly and deliberately targeted vital U.S. and international institutions and initiatives that were designed to make ours a safer and fairer world. His all-out assault on the very concepts of multilateralism, asylum, racial and gender justice, global health and life-saving climate action is exacerbating the significant damage those principles and institutions have already sustained and is further emboldening other anti-rights leaders and movements to join his onslaught,” said Agnes Callamard.

“Having paved the way for this mess by failing to universally uphold the rule of law, the international community must now shoulder the responsibility.”