- June 6, 2025
Trump’s new office of ‘Western values’ will be a showcase of double standards
According to a 130-page report to Congress by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the proposed office is part of a State Department overhaul that aims to cut 3,448 jobs. The shake-up would scrap most of the existing Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, merging its remnants into a smaller office led by a deputy assistant secretary of state for democracy and Western values.
But based on the Trump administration’s track record, this new department is shaping up to be a textbook case of political double standards. Expect plenty of finger-wagging at Cuba, Venezuela and Iran — which is fine and necessary — while turning a blind eye to the destruction of democratic institutions in Mexico, El Salvador or Hungary.
What’s worse, it may echo Trump’s praise for some Trump-friendly dictatorships, such as Saudi Arabia, or near-dictatorships like El Salvador.
During his visit to Saudi Arabia in March, Trump praised its de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, as an “incredible” and “great” leader. The U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in 2021 that bin Salman had approved the operation that killed Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
In recent months, Trump has also rolled out the red carpet for El Salvador’s authoritarian president, Nayib Bukele, describing him as a “remarkable president” and showering him with praise at the White House.
While Bukele is popular for slashing El Salvador’s crime rates, human rights groups — and, until Trump took office Jan. 20, even the U.S. government — have accused him of widespread abuses and bending the law to seize absolute power.
Recently, Bukele passed a law cracking down on human rights, pro-democracy and anti-corruption groups that receive foreign funding. His government has also stepped up arrests of critics. As a headline in The Economist magazine put it this week, “First he busted gangs. Now Nayib Bukele busts critics.”
The Trump administration has also been shy about criticizing Mexico’s slow-motion slide into an elected autocracy. On June 1, Mexico held controversial elections to elect judges and Supreme Court justices by direct vote — a far cry from the merit-based appointment system used in most countries.
Critics fear — rightly — that the ruling Morena party rigged the voting process to seize the judiciary and give the President Claudia Sheinbaum control over all branches of government. Only 13% of Mexican voters went to the polls.
Furthermore, the Trump administration is slashing U.S. aid for human rights and press freedom groups worldwide, including independent pro-democracy websites in Venezuela and Cuba.
At home, the administration has little to show when it comes to its defense of “Western values.”
Is it consistent with “Western values” to try to deport hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans, Cubans, Nicaraguans and Haitians who are legally in the United States under Temporary Protected Status (TPS), often separating them from their U.S.-born children?
Is the United States really upholding “Western values” when its president ignores court rulings, as has happened recently in several immigration cases?
Can America really preach about “Western values” when its president said that there were “very fine people on both sides” after a group of neo-Nazis clashed with protesters at the infamous “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017?
Unless the Trump administration stops praising autocrats and shows respect for America’s own constitution, the new “Democracy and Western Values” office will quickly become a joke.
Don’t be surprised if it’s soon dubbed the Office of Selective Outrage. Its acronym, OSO, means “bear” in Spanish, which would be fitting for an office that hibernates whenever democracy is under threat.