How the U.S. Can Once Again Lead on Human Rights

How the U.S. Can Lead on Human Rights Post-Trump

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Argument: How the U.S. Can Once Again Lead on Human Rights

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Argument

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How the U.S. Can Once Again Lead on Human Rights

In the post-Trump era, Washington will need to regain credibility. Pluralism is where it should start.

!An illustrated headshot of Suzanne Nossel

*An illustrated headshot of Suzanne Nossel*

*Suzanne Nossel*

By **Suzanne Nossel**, a columnist at *Foreign Policy* and the Lester Crown senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy and international order at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

!A young person with long hair helps carry a U.S. flag at a demonstration. In the background is a sign that reads: "MY DREAMS ARE NOT ILLEGAL."

*A young person with long hair helps carry a U.S. flag at a demonstration. In the background is a sign that reads: "MY DREAMS ARE NOT ILLEGAL."*

A demonstrator helps carry a U.S. flag as immigrants' rights supporters march in Los Angeles on March 1, 2025. Mario Tama/Getty Images

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October 5, 2026, 9:20 AM

For 80 years, the United States styled itself as a defender of human rights and freedom on the global stage. While its record was never pure, the language of values cut across Republican and Democratic administrations, lending credibility and distinctiveness to Washington’s global leadership. Even routine charges of hypocrisy underscored that there were certain principles that Washington purported to stand for, though they might too often be honored in the breach.

Of the many pillars of U.S. foreign policy that President Donald Trump’s administration has sent tumbling down, values-based leadership may be among the toughest to erect anew. That’s because it is premised on firm ideals and commitments. While U.S. partners have come to expect a certain amount of wavering, fundamental betrayals are hard to overcome. By the end of Trump’s second term—12 years after he first came to power—younger generations will have little lived memory of values-based U.S. leadership. Already, when surveyed, people under 35 in traditional U.S. allied countries are especially likely to say U.S. democracy has never been a model worth following. After Trump, observers will be primed to view U.S. values as empty.

For 80 years, the United States styled itself as a defender of human rights and freedom on the global stage. While its record was never pure, the language of values cut across Republican and Democratic administrations, lending credibility and distinctiveness to Washington’s global leadership. Even routine charges of hypocrisy underscored that there were certain principles that Washington purported to stand for, though they might too often be honored in the breach.

Of the many pillars of U.S. foreign policy that President Donald Trump’s administration has sent tumbling down, values-based leadership may be among the toughest to erect anew. That’s because it is premised on firm ideals and commitments. While U.S. partners have come to expect a certain amount of wavering, fundamental betrayals are hard to overcome. By the end of Trump’s second term—12 years after he first came to power—younger generations will have little lived memory of values-based U.S. leadership. Already, when surveyed, people under 35 in traditional U.S. allied countries are especially likely to say U.S. democracy has never been a model worth following. After Trump, observers will be primed to view U.S. values as empty.

Future U.S. administrations will have to build on this cracked foundation. There will be no return to the era when the United States could plausibly cast itself as a standard-bearer for democracy and human rights. But Washington can still painstakingly earn back credibility by demonstrating sincerity, engaging partners, and delivering on commitments. Perhaps the best place to start is by rededicating the country to what it has long been known for: civic pluralism, including respect for ethnic and religious differences. By turning pluralism into a practical foreign-policy agenda, Washington can reestablish the standing it needs to lead again on democracy and human rights.

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The notion that values should guide U.S. foreign policy goes back at least as far as Woodrow Wilson’s presidency. It ran through Franklin D. Roosevelt’s and Harry Truman’s efforts in establishing the United Nations to Jimmy Carter’s elevation of human rights as a bureaucratic and policy cornerstone to Ronald Reagan’s invocation of freedom as a Cold War rallying cry. Over the decades, Washington built an expansive global democracy and rights infrastructure, encompassing the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and myriad State Department offices and emissaries focused on religious freedom, LGBTQ+ rights, international justice, and more.

By the early years of the 21st century, the so-called war on terrorism compromised Washington’s already checkered record on rights. As geopolitical competition intensified, values increasingly took a back seat in relations with China, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and other countries. That trend accelerated when Trump returned for his second term in 2024.

Since reentering office, Trump has torched much of the U.S. infrastructure on rights and democracy. He demolished USAID and retracted billions of dollars in U.S. funding and commitments for global rights and democracy protections, undermining decades of policy and programs worldwide that had depended on Washington’s