Trump Officials Want to Use Human Rights Aid to Advocate for White South Africans and Right-Wing Causes in Europe

Trump administration officials are proposing to redirect U.S. human rights funding in a significant departure from tradition, ProPublica reports. Rather than supporting vulnerable populations in authoritarian regimes, the State Department is considering grants to conservative and anti-immigration organizations in Europe, and advocates for white South Africans. One no-bid grant of five million dollars would go to the Free Speech Union, a British organization known for defending figures accused of transphobia and opposing bans on conversion therapy. Another program would allocate four point nine million dollars for "civilizational self-confidence in Europe." This breaks sharply from decades of human rights funding focused on documenting torture, sexual violence, and political abuses in the world's most repressive countries. Members of Congress, including Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen, have raised concerns that these awards prioritize political ideology over advancing democratic institutions and worker rights in places where freedoms are most under threat.

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