U.S. President Donald Trump’s record on human rights in his first year in office has been a “disaster” and has encouraged oppression by authoritarian leaders from China to Russia, the head of Human Rights Watch said in an interview on Wednesday.
Kenneth Roth was speaking ahead of HRW’s annual report launch in Paris, where he said French President Emmanuel Macron needed to fill a void with countries like Britain, which was distracted by Brexit, and the United States which was largely absent from the rights’ landscape.
“Trump has been a disaster for the human rights movement, in part because he seems to have this insatiable desire to embrace people who have been able to govern without the checks and balances of democracy.” Roth said in an interview.
