Rights Bulwark: Int’s Campaigners, Organizations Brace for Second Trump Term

With a little over a month to the presidential inauguration and official hand-over ceremony in the US, Republican president-elect Donald J Trump’s landslide victory against Democrat and outgoing Vice President Kamala Harris is already causing domestic and global concern.

From declaring blanket tariffs on imported goods from China, Canada, and Mexico, a move that would see the cost of living increase for regular Americans, to fears of what a second Trump term would mean for ongoing regional conflicts in the Middle East, world leaders and political pundits alike are sounding the alarm on a potentially detrimental course of the MAGA Republican at the helm.

 Among those also sounding the alarm are human rights organizations. In the wake of the repealing of Roe vs Wade, and the right to an abortion for women and pregnant people in the US by a Republican-stacked conservative Supreme Court, even more rights are expected to be scrapped, especially those related to access to reproductive rights, healthcare, education, anti-discrimination policies, and gender-affirming care for Trans individuals in the US.

In the wake of Trump’s November 6 victory, several human rights organizations and campaigners issued strong statements vowing to protect rights potentially under threat during a second Trump administration, especially in the face of Project 2025, described by Human Rights Watch as “a governing plan written by Trump’s former advisers and political allies, details many other abusive, often racially discriminatory policies that the new administration may adopt.”  

“During Trump’s first term as president, from 2017 to 2021, Human Rights Watch documented his record of rights abuses,” an article published by Human Rights Watch noted, in reference to the president-elect’s track record of violating human rights during his first term. “Trump’s pledges during his 2024 campaign raise greater cause for concern in a second term, both domestically and internationally. In 2023, he said he would not be a dictator “except for day one” in office,” the article further noted.

Trump’s first term in office further emboldened autocrats around the world responsible for egregious human rights violations, including Victor Orban and Vladimir Putin, both of whom have waged a war against gender and sexual minorities in Hungary and Russia respectively, with the latter outlawing gender-affirming care, effectively criminalizing homosexuality leading to mass arrests.

Also in the same period, the world saw a surge in anti-LGBT rhetoric and policies in the world, especially in Africa and Europe, with leaders in those regions emboldened by the US increasingly breaking with human rights governing bodies in the world, including withdrawing from the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHCR) and imposing sanctions on International Criminal Court (ICC) officials investigating potential war crimes involving US personnel. 

A combination of an erosion of rights domestically will also lead to a shift in US foreign policy. The US, responsible for funding many health, education, disaster relief, and governance programs across the world, may affect the running of said projects by rerouting funds or cutting them altogether should the recipient organizations’ policies not align with those of the Trump administration.

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An article published by the Guttmacher Institute, a leading research and policy organization committed to advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) worldwide, notes the reinstatement and expansion of the global gag rule as a possibility during Trump’s second term in office. The policy “a policy that prohibits US global health assistance from going to any non-US organization that provides abortion care or referrals using its own, non-US funds. He had expanded this policy to apply to all global health assistance, not just global family planning assistance, as was the case in prior Republican administrations.”

The reach of US foreign policy influence, the Guttmacher article explains, could also extend to the drafting of UN resolutions and reports, policy statements, and technical literature with language attacking gender equality and endangers SRHR globally.

A second Trump term chilling effect is also expected to be felt in media freedom, especially when it comes to reporting on issues affecting marginalized groups worldwide. Trump, famous for dubbing journalists and media outlets that he doesn’t agree with “fake news,” has largely upended the traditional media establishment in much of the Global West, giving rise to trutherism and a proliferation of “alternative facts,” or misinformation, as was witnessed during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic when conspiracies about vaccines and mask mandates were rife.

Many are believed to have lost their lives at the height of the global pandemic as a direct result of misinformation generated, encouraged, or supported by Trump, with the Washington Post, in an October 1, 2020, article dubbing him a “super-spreader of Coronavirus misinformation.” An NPR article published nearly two years later, on May 19, 2022, highlighted how residents in Trump-supporting counties in the US were twice as likely to die from COVID-19 than those in Democratic-leaning counties.

A self-confessed authoritarian, friend to autocrats, misogynist, racist, Islamophobe, and sexist, and with a team of sycophants to carry out his bidding to boot, Trump’s second term in office promises to be a basket full of deplorables, working to thwart hard-won victories in human rights and global governance. However, individuals and organizations involved in global advocacy are prepared to change the tide against the president-elect’s hateful agenda for the future.

“Independent institutions and civil society groups, including Human Rights Watch, will need to do all we can to hold him and his administration accountable for abuses,” said Tirana Hassan, executive director at Human Rights Watch, as a rallying cry. “This second term must be different, and Amnesty International will continue to fight for everyone’s human rights to be respected,” said Paul O’Brien, Amnesty International USA’s Executive Director, echoing Hassan’s call to action.

Photos: Unsplash