The Trump administration is substantially scaling back the State Department's annual reports on international human rights to remove longstanding critiques of abuses such as harsh prison conditions, government corruption and restrictions on participation in the political process, NPR has learned.
Despite decades of precedent, the reports, which are meant to inform congressional decisions on foreign aid allocations and security assistance, will no longer call governments out for such things as denying freedom of movement and peaceful assembly. They won't condemn retaining political prisoners without due process or restrictions on "free and fair elections."
Forcibly returning a refugee or asylum-seeker to a home country where they may face torture or persecution will no longer be highlighted, nor will serious harassment of human rights organizations.
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 organize," 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.
Among other topics ordered to be struck from the reports:
- Involuntary or coercive medical or psychological practices.
- Arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy.
- Serious restrictions to internet freedom.
- Extensive gender-based violence.
- Violence or threats of violence targeting people with disabilities.
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 Orbán 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 Léderer 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," Léderer 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 Labor.
"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 favorites."
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-emphasizing 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."
He said the reports show that "the United States will stand with freedom-seeking people around the world."
As secretary of state, Rubio is now responsible for the reports. He's the person who, traditionally, would promote their release to the public. But under his stewardship, those violations he cited — sexual exploitation of women and children and the denial of political rights to minorities — are being deleted from the reports.
The reports will still include human rights matters that are specifically required by law, including war crimes and genocide, antisemitism, worker rights and child marriage. Attacks on freedom of the press have to be reported, although not those on freedom of expression for regular citizens.
For all of these required categories, the editing memo dictates that where multiple examples were cited in the original drafts, reporting should be "reduced" to just one example.
Paul O'Brien of Amnesty International called this misguided.
" These things are not meant to be novels or cliffhangers," he said. "They are deeply useful as reference documents for folks with all sorts of different needs. You're trying to understand whether to invest in a country. You're trying to understand how to approach a set of political actors who are now in charge of a country and where you want to hold them accountable."
The reports on Hungary and El Salvador are among 20 countries whose reports, the memo directs, must be flagged for special review by a "Senior Advisor" in the department — a political appointee. The other countries flagged include Argentina, Egypt, South Africa, Russia, Ukraine, Serbia, Italy, the Philippines, Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom.
Michele Kelemen and Nick McMillan contributed to this reporting.
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