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One hundred days into his second term, U.S. President Donald Trump is at the center of a blistering new report by Amnesty International, which portrays a world in deepening crisis, marked by rising repression and humanitarian collapse.
In its State of the World’s Human Rights 2024/25 report, Amnesty accuses the Trump administration of “turbocharging” dangerous global trends—from the erosion of asylum protections to crackdown on civil society and the unraveling of international legal frameworks. The so-called “Trump effect,” the group warns, is far-reaching, emboldening autocratic regimes and undermining already fragile mechanisms of global accountability.
“Authoritarianism is metastasizing,” said Amnesty Secretary General Agnès Callamard. “The U.S. has gone from being a flawed but necessary defender of human rights to a reckless enabler of their destruction.”
The report documents human rights abuses in 150 countries. In Bangladesh, nearly 1,000 student protesters were killed under shoot-to-kill orders. In Sudan, mass rapes committed by the Rapid Support Forces and the displacement of 11 million civilians have gone largely unaddressed. In Gaza, Amnesty describes what it calls “a live-streamed genocide,” carried out by Israeli forces with impunity.
Meanwhile, U.S. foreign aid cuts ordered by Trump have shuttered refugee hospitals in Thailand, halted cholera treatment programs in Yemen, and left children stranded in Syrian detention camps.
On the environmental front, Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and renewed push for fossil fuel drilling have drawn fierce criticism. COP29 climate negotiations collapsed under pressure from oil lobbyists, and scientists now warn of a looming three degrees centigrade rise in global temperatures.
The report also accuses the Trump administration of actively undermining international justice. It imposed sanctions on International Criminal Court (ICC) officials and severed ties with key UN institutions. Despite this, the ICC has issued arrest warrants in conflicts ranging from Gaza to Myanmar.
In response, a new “Hague Group” of Global South nations—led by South Africa—is seeking accountability, including through a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.
“Trump is not the cause—but he is the accelerant,” Callamard warned. “His alliance with tech billionaires, rollback of rights protections, and abandonment of global cooperation are pushing the world into a new era of impunity and corporate capture.”
Yet the report ends on a note of defiance. In South Korea, mass protests removed a president who imposed martial law. Eight countries have formed a coalition to block arms transfers to Israel. And in defiance of mounting pressure, civil society groups and grassroots activists continue to organize and resist.
“This is not the end of human rights,” Callamard insisted. “But it may be the fight of our lives,” she concluded.
