While downplaying abuses by Trump allies, the US State Department’s latest human rights report steps up pressure on European Union member states, reitirating message about supposed erosion of free speech in Europe. Critics say the double standard breaks with the report’s tradition as an impartial record, raising questions over Washington’s consistency on human rights.
Published this week after months of internal revisions and staffing upheavals, the 2024 report marks a significant departure from the past. Gone is the traditional format of the congressionally mandated review, which historically served as a benchmark for global human rights monitoring. Under Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the report now emphasises concepts such as “Life,” “Liberty,” and “Security of the Person,” while omitting or downplaying previous focus areas including reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights and civil society protections. And that’s not all.
Omissions and re-centering
Notably absent from the new report is reporting on the humanitarian crisis and death toll in Gaza, despite the reported deaths of more than 60,000 people since October 2023. The Gaza conflict, cited at length before, now gets only a brief reference. Similarly, the report describes El Salvador as having “no credible reports of significant human rights abuses,” which is a significant reversal. Last year, the previous report cited dire prison conditions, torture, and extrajudicial killings. By appearances, the current US president has given certain allies a free pass.
By contrast, the State Department report now singles out what it calls “erosions of free speech” in countries such as the UK, France, Germany, or Romania — a move mirroring the controversial “within” speech by US Vice-President JD Vance during his first visit to Germany last year.
Rights in the UK and Germany
The report takes note of restrictions on freedom of speech in the United Kingdom and Germany. For the UK, the report emphasised challenges around free expression, highlighting legal and policy frameworks that allow speech to be penalised when deemed “hateful” or “offensive”—even in political discourse.
Germany also came under scrutiny. The report stated that the human rights situation in the country had deteriorated over the previous year, citing limits on freedom of expression and documented cases of violence, intimidation, or threats linked to antisemitic motives. While the assessment acknowledged that German authorities had taken measurable steps to investigate and prosecute rights violations, it nonetheless emphasised that fundamental rights protections had come under pressure.
You might be interested
At the time of publication, neither the UK nor German governments had issued an official response. Earlier in the year German Chancellor Friedrich Merz had called JD Vance’s comments “intrusive“, Deutsche Welle noted, when the US vice-president accused the government of trying to marginalise far-right parties, including the Alternative for Germany (AfD).
The new report also intensifies scrutiny of Brazil and South Africa, accusing the former of using its courts to suppress political dissent, and the latter of advancing racially discriminatory land expropriation policies targeting white Afrikaners. The Guardian noted that in the report the Trump administration “had moved away from the traditional US promotion of democracy and human rights.” Critics are adamant the report is politicised.
It is clear that the Trump Administration has engaged in a very selective documentation of human rights abuses in certain countries… – Amnesty International
Widespread criticism
Amnesty International USA slammed the report saying it had crossed a line not seen often before.
“With the release of the U.S. State Department’s human rights report, it is clear that the Trump Administration has engaged in a very selective documentation of human rights abuses in certain countries… We have criticized past reports when warranted, but have never seen reports quite like this. Never before have the reports gone this far in prioritizing an administration’s political agenda over a consistent and truthful accounting of human rights violations around the world…”
The Council for Global Equality (CGE), reacted even earlier, filing a lawsuit seeking the release of internal documents from the State Department tied to the human rights report. In its August 11, 2025 press release, CGE stated that Trump-Vance appointees had “stripped” references to LGBTQ+ abuses in the report and delayed its release by nearly six months — raising serious concerns about omitting critical information. The lawsuit argues that this “strategic omission” contradicts Congress’s mandate for a “full and complete report” on internationally recognised human rights.
Propaganda and new realities
Reuters quoted a response by Josh Paul, a former senior State Department official with A New Policy NGO, who compared the final product to “a Soviet propaganda release.” It also quoted State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce who explained the report had been restructured to improve readability and was no longer an expansive list of “politically biased demands and assertions.”
The Washington Post reported on the layoffs of hundreds of staff from the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor — the team traditionally responsible for drafting the report — following an overhaul ordered by Mr Rubio earlier this year.
Additional reaction from countries
It did not take long for one of the government’s singled out in the report to respond. South Africa’s foreign ministry called the US analysis “deeply flawed.”
“It is ironic that a report from a nation that has exited the UN Human Rights Council and therefore no longer sees itself accountable in a multilateral peer review system would seek to produce one-sided fact free reports without any due process or engagement.”
Since taking office in January, Mr Trump has shifted the United States’ approach to international human rights, favouring bilateral deals and national sovereignty over global norms. This year’s report appears to reinforce that pivot, criticising adversaries more aggressively while excusing or ignoring abuses committed by strategic allies — particularly those aligned with the administration’s immigration, security, or ideological priorities.
The State Department has not denied that political considerations shaped the final report. Officials told sources that delays were due in part to major revisions from Trump appointees, who worked to align it with “America First” policies. The result has prompted widespread doubts about its credibility, critics say.
