Washington (TDI): Human Rights Watch (HRW) has warned that the United States is moving toward authoritarianism under President Donald Trump, as global democracy falls to its weakest level in nearly four decades.
In its annual global report released on Wednesday, the New York-based rights organization said Trump’s return to the White House has accelerated an already deepening global decline in human rights, driven in part by actions taken by major powers such as Russia and the United States.
“The rules-based international order is being dismantled,” the report said, accusing the Trump administration of showing open contempt for democratic norms and human rights protections.
Human Rights Watch said developments in the US over the past year would have been “unthinkable” in earlier reports, pointing specifically to the use of masked and heavily armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in what it described as hundreds of abusive and unnecessarily violent raids.
The organization accused the administration of racial and ethnic scapegoating, politically motivated retaliation against critics, and the domestic deployment of National Guard forces under questionable legal pretexts. According to HRW, efforts to expand executive power while weakening democratic checks and balances signal a clear shift toward authoritarian governance.
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The report also renewed HRW’s allegation that the United States committed enforced disappearances, a violation of international law, by transferring 252 Venezuelan migrants to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador. The men later alleged they were subjected to torture, including beatings and sexual abuse, according to a separate HRW investigation.
Human Rights Watch said global democracy indicators have now fallen to levels last seen in 1985, when the Soviet Union was still intact. The group noted that both Russia and the United States are less free today than they were two decades ago.
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Philippe Bolopion, HRW’s executive director, urged democratic governments to form principled alliances grounded in respect for human rights, democracy, and international law, warning that economic pressure alone, including tariffs, cannot substitute for shared values.
“For such alliances to be durable and credible, they must be anchored in principles,” he said, adding that value-based cooperation offers long-term security to its members.
