WaPo (“Under Trump, State Department questions Europe’s commitment to democracy“):
The Trump administration is stepping up its criticism of long-standing U.S. allies in Western Europe over free speech and other democratic ideals, even as President Donald Trump has pledged to stop lecturing foreign nations and dramatically softened Washington’s approach to the world’s autocracies.
In recent days, Trump officials have made a series of head-spinning moves signaling the foreign policy shift that’s underway, with the State Department leading the charge. The administration intends to establish a new office within the department that is focused on “natural rights” and what officials characterized as “free speech backsliding” in Europe. It sent a delegation to the continent to scrutinize freedom of expression there, and announced new visa restrictions for European officials whom Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused of targeting American citizens through efforts to police social media discourse.
The evolving U.S. position was articulated this month by Samuel Samson, a 26-year-old Trump appointee serving in a senior role at the State Department, who argued in a widely shared treatise on Substack that Europe had “devolved into a hotbed of digital censorship, mass migration, restrictions on religious freedom, and numerous other assaults on democratic self-governance.” Those claims have bewildered European officials, who note the Trump administration itself has been accused of breaching democratic norms by cracking down on free speech and not complying with court orders.
While the United States and European nations have always had disagreements, the assertions being leveled by the Trump administration, and its redeployment of oversight resources toward American allies, is a remarkable shift that has baffled current and former government officials and alarmed human rights advocates who say Trump is attempting to meddle in European politics while ignoring genuine abuses elsewhere.
“By focusing mostly on Europe,” the Trump administration is missing “an enormous chunk of the world where the democracy and human rights problems are vastly worse,” said a former senior State Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to comment candidly because they still do business with the U.S. government. This person, a Republican, noted that it was “ironic that this administration is attacking Europe for things that are happening in this country as a result of this administration’s behavior.”
It has long been true that the United States has had a more robust notion of free speech than other Western nations, even fellow members of the Anglosphere. Outside of direct incitement of violence, there is essentially no legal restriction on what one can say here. Most Western nations limit hate speech or that which may indirectly lead to violence or even cause offense. Whether our version is better than theirs is debatable.
But, yes, this is a really odd time to be making these arguments. Not only is there demonstrable democratic backsliding within these shores but we’ve become friendlier with autocratic regimes whose commitment to democratic ideals is nonexistent.
Michael Posner, the assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights, and labor during the Obama administration, said it was “ totally inconsistent” to focus on Europe and not other regions. “We’ve essentially abandoned a notion that the United States advances its values as well as its interests,” he added.
Of particular concern to Trump’s critics is the delayed release of an annual report on human rights abuses worldwide — and the widely expected plan to eliminate large sections of it.
In the past, the State Department has used the report to call out countries such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, nondemocracies that, despite their closeness with Washington, have faced routine U.S. scrutiny for limiting free speech and political expression, among other repressive, antidemocratic activities. During his tour of the Middle East this month, Trump told an audience in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, that the United States would end such “lectures.”
Whether publicly lecturing partners of convenience about their human rights practices is useful or effective is certainly debatable. But it’s hard to conceive of a rationale for dropping them while attacking our democratic allies.
