COMMENT: Trump’s strongman weakness

But US policymakers’ options for dealing with a country where systematic abuses take place are not limited to imposing American values on that country’s government. And, frankly, it’s difficult to see how simply telling Sisi, Erdoğan, or Duterte to adopt American values would do much good. But Tillerson does not seem to recognise that those countries, too, have agreed to abide by internationally accepted values, and to respect human rights.

So, rather than imposing its values, the US can and should call on governments it works with to adhere to the commitments that they made when they ratified the Charter of the United Nations and other international treaties, such as the UN Convention Against Torture.

When Sisi’s forces kill hundreds of peaceful protestors in the streets of Cairo, they are violating values that their own government pledged to respect. The same goes for Erdoğan when his government imprisons more journalists than any other government in the world; and for Duterte, when he encourages his police forces and other “vigilantes” to carry out death-squad-style killings.

Another fallacy in Tillerson’s State Department remarks is the suggestion that human-rights promotion conflicts with US national-security and economic interests. What Tillerson misses is that praising the likes of Sisi, Erdoğan, and Duterte without also mentioning their human-rights abuses is not the same thing as adopting a neutral stance. Rather, it signals to all of those suffering under authoritarian governments that the US condones those governments’ repressive practices – a position that could damage US national-security and economic interests over the long term, by undermining America’s global respect and prestige.

Of course, when confronting particularly pressing and dangerous foreign-policy challenges, it may be appropriate to set aside human-rights concerns temporarily. For example, if the Trump administration is serious about persuading North Korea to abandon its efforts to develop nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles, then denouncing that regime’s gross abuses is not a strategic priority.

But leaving those abuses unmentioned is a far cry from endorsing or openly condoning Kim Jong-un’s reign of terror. Giving Kim a free pass would never be justified. And yet that is precisely what Trump has been giving other authoritarian leaders. Sadly, as Tillerson has made clear, Trump’s admiration for such leaders will now be an animating force of official policy.

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Aryeh Neier is President Emeritus of the Open Society Foundations.

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Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2017.
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