![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/GettyImages-2216318854-1024x683.jpg\")
U.S. President Donald Trump and South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa debate during a press availability in the Oval Office at the White House on May 21, 2025 in Washington, DC. | Chip Somodevilla\/Getty Images<\/p>\nPrior to this embarrassing set of mismatched actions, Trump and his team had already done cataclysmic damage to America\u2019s standing as a supporter of democracy and human rights in the world: They disparaged multiple democratic allies, threatened some of them with territorial grabs, blamed Ukraine for being invaded by Russia, spoke in support of illiberal right-wing leaders or parties in various democracies, dismantled approximately 90 percent of U.S. assistance directed at supporting democracy abroad, announced a planned evisceration of the State Department\u2019s annual human rights reports, and disbanded the National Security Council\u2019s staff directorate devoted to democracy and human rights.<\/p>\n
But Trump\u2019s performances in Riyadh and with Ramaphosa in the White House take this one-country race to the bottom of democracy policy to an even further low.<\/p>\n
U.S. democracy support has long existed with a certain amount of inconsistency. Over the decades, Washington has often gone easier on the dubious political practices of certain authoritarians who provide security and economic benefits to the U.S., while being tougher on those who don\u2019t. But Trump\u2019s glaring, in-your-face assurance of an easy ride to a room full of autocrats one day, followed by him tearing into a friendly democratic government a week later, give this inconsistency a whole new meaning.<\/p>\n
Moreover, Trump\u2019s use of obvious disinformation \u2014 the amateurish video he showed Ramaphosa, and his accompanying statements about the \u201cover a thousand\u201d killings of white farmers \u2014 to try and make his case has uprooted whatever U.S. credibility had survived over the last several months.<\/p>\n
U.S. President Donald Trump and South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa debate during a press availability in the Oval Office at the White House on May 21, 2025 in Washington, DC. | Chip Somodevilla\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
It actually used to mean something when a U.S. president raised concerns about specific democracy and human rights wrongdoings with foreign leaders. Using this unique platform to perform a falsity-laden, almost absurd charade in front of the world\u2019s eyes renders this administration utterly uncredible as a diplomatic player in this realm.<\/p>\n
Interestingly, however, in their efforts to twist Ramaphosa\u2019s arm, one tool the Trump administration couldn\u2019t invoke was the influence that comes from an active bilateral aid program.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prior to this embarrassing set of mismatched actions, Trump and his team had already done cataclysmic damage to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134828,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[12915,15891,31,5293,13071,32,4582,46,48,6506,2196,1771,49,978,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-134827","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-aid-and-development","9":"tag-cyril-ramaphosa","10":"tag-democracy","11":"tag-diplomacy","12":"tag-disinformation","13":"tag-donald-trump","14":"tag-human-rights","15":"tag-policy","16":"tag-rights","17":"tag-saudi-arabia","18":"tag-south-africa","19":"tag-u-s-foreign-policy","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114577531773904970","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}