The State Department released its first annual human rights report since overhauling its content, which was noticeably scaled back from previous analyses.

The report, which includes a detailed summary of every country’s human rights record over the previous year, was released after numerous delays due to cuts in the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. Secretary of State Marco Rubio previously bashed the bureau as having become “a platform for left-wing activists to wage vendettas against ‘anti-woke’ leaders.” The newest report reflected the Trump administration’s priorities, including antisemitism and free speech. However, critics said it downplayed the human rights abuses of favored countries.

Recommended Stories

• Trump shouldn't bite on Putin's poisoned North Korea lure
• Bessent presses Europe to align with Trump's tariff strategy to end Ukraine war
• Bolton dismisses Trump record as president wanting Nobel Peace Prize 'more than anything'

Among the most obvious changes from the previous year was El Salvador, whose government clashed with the Biden administration while becoming a conservative standard-bearer. Last year’s report alleged numerous human rights abuses in the country, but this year’s said, “There were no credible reports of significant human rights abuses,” a rare statement. The report said the Salvadoran government took “credible steps to identify and punish officials who committed human rights abuses.”

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has emerged as one of Trump’s closest allies in the Western Hemisphere. Trump has admired Bukele for his massive anti-gang crackdown, which drew criticism from the Biden administration. The country’s capital, San Salvador, openly celebrated Trump’s election in 2024.

Other conservative allies, such as Hungary, received the same treatment. Qatar, which has served as a significant ally to the United States in organizing and mediating negotiations with other powers, was largely exempt from the heavy scrutiny it has received in past reports.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, the human rights report leveled criticisms against countries previously largely immune from scrutiny, including the United Kingdom, France, and Germany.

“Significant human rights issues included credible reports of serious restrictions on freedom of expression, including enforcement of or threat of criminal or civil laws in order to limit expression; and crimes, violence, or threats of violence motivated by antisemitism,” the section on the U.K. said, characterizing the human rights situation as having “worsened” over the past year.

Despite opening direct talks with Moscow, the newest human rights report was harsh on Russia, accusing it of numerous crimes. Ukraine also received a fair amount of criticism.

Armenia and Azerbaijan, the subjects of Trump’s most recent brokered peace deal, were given opposite ratings. Armenia’s human rights situation was said to be positive and improving, while Azerbaijan was accused of numerous crimes.

One of the biggest changes from previous years was the report’s treatment of South Africa. It said the country’s human rights situation “significantly worsened” largely due to the controversial expropriations bill.

“The government did not take credible steps to investigate, prosecute, and punish officials who committed human rights abuses, including inflammatory racial rhetoric against Afrikaners and other racial minorities, or violence against racial minorities,” the report said.

Brazil also received harsh treatment in the report, which pointed to its internet censorship and prosecution of former President Jair Bolsonaro.

Human rights-focused nongovernmental organizations were apoplectic over the new report, accusing the Trump administration of politicizing the analysis.

“We have criticized past reports when warranted, but have never seen reports quite like this,” Amanda Klasing, Amnesty International USA’s national director of government relations and advocacy, said in a statement obtained by Axios.

“Never before have the reports gone this far in prioritizing an administration’s political agenda over a consistent and truthful accounting of human rights violations around the world — softening criticism in some countries while ignoring violations in others,” she added.

Klasing also excoriated the report for not focusing on LGBT persecution and women’s rights.

A State Department spokesperson told the Washington Examiner that the report removed some bits to reduce “redundancy” and increase “readability.” The report was “responsive to the legislative mandates that underpin the report, rather than an expansive list of politically biased demands and assertions.”

TRUMP DHS SUED FOR REQUIRING ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS TO REGISTER WITH GOVERNMENT

“The Human Rights Report only makes the United States — and the world — safer, stronger, and more prosperous if individual reports are useful, factual, and unclouded by political biases and cherry-picking. This year’s revised individual reports are a welcome step in that direction,” the spokesperson said.

“The Trump Administration, both President Trump and Secretary Rubio, have been leading efforts on the most important human right, which is the right to life, including leading on ceasefire signings and treaties, and multiple other avenues, demonstrating the administration’s commitment to human rights,” they concluded.