Trump’s disdain for human rights will backfire — and hurt U.S. national security

(Photo: Evan Vucci AP)

President Donald Trump’s frequent praise for dictators around the world has long suggested that he would be no champion of human rights. Regrettably, it looks like his disdain for universal freedoms will now become an official tenet of U.S. foreign policy.

In a May 3 address to State Department employees, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that while U.S. foreign policy is guided by fundamental values, too much reliance on human rights principles “really creates obstacles to our ability to advance our national security interests, our economic interests.”

He added that, “In some circumstances, we should and do condition our policy engagements” on human rights, “but that doesn’t mean that’s the case in every situation.”

Hmm. In several long, convoluted sentences, Tillerson turned around the bipartisan principles that have guided U.S. foreign policy since World War II. What most of us heard from his State Department speech was that the United States will from now on defend human rights “in some circumstances.”

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