The News
Analysts argue that US President Donald Trump’s upending of political norms has emboldened autocratic leaders around the world to pursue crackdowns on human rights and democracy.
Some leaders have explicitly invoked Trump’s return to power as justification for their moves: After Hungary’s parliament voted this month to ban an annual LBGTQ+ Pride parade, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government said the changes in Washington meant the “American boot” had been lifted off Hungary’s chest and that events like Pride no longer enjoyed US protection.
Serbian authorities cited Trump’s claims of fraud at USAID to launch raids against pro-democracy civil society groups. Georgia’s government similarly used the USAID aid freeze to vow to pursue new restrictions against media and civil society, including a proposed ban on foreign funding for media.
Other leaders have not openly cited Trump, but analysts see clear links between their actions and Trump’s rule: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is betting that Trump won’t challenge the jailing of a top rival, while some have drawn comparisons between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent efforts to oust critics in this government and Trump’s prioritization of loyalists for key posts.
SIGNALS
Autocrats are increasingly in sync
Donald Trump’s domestic policies and statements are “providing cover for a fresh chill on freedom of expression [and] democracy” globally, The Washington Post argued. The director of Carnegie Europe said the accelerated pace of democratic crackdowns in several countries following Trump’s return to power show that “autocrats and would-be autocrats” are “much more connected in their policies and goals than we have been assuming.” These leaders are “sniffing the change in the geopolitical air, and reckoning they’re on the cusp of a new era,” Politico Europe’s opinion editor wrote. Critically, they are looking to each other for inspiration to enact new rules or find new ways to cement power.
Territorial conquest could be next frontier
Experts worry the next phase of the lurch toward autocracy will borrow from Donald Trump’s expansionist vision. “Conquest is back,” an expert declared in Foreign Affairs, arguing that if Washington helps negotiate a Ukraine peace deal that gives Moscow part of Ukrainian territory, “other powers may be more tempted to wage wars of conquest.” That would alter an accepted post-World War II norm that overt invasions of sovereign territory would elicit widespread, US-led pushback, The Guardian wrote. “It was advertised that the US didn’t do conquest. What is clearly changing is this the first time since [the 19th century] when there is a conversation about whether the US does do conquest or not,” a UK-based international security expert said.
Trump’s return may work against some leaders he inspires
Leaders who align with Donald Trump’s worldview will no longer be able to accuse malicious foreign actors from the West for fomenting anti-government protests in their countries, Bloomberg noted. Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, whose actions to suppress political opposition have barely invoked Western criticism, will have “nobody but himself to blame” for public pushback. Meanwhile, European populists like France’s Marine Le Pen and Italy’s Giorgia Meloni who — while aligning with Trump’s brand of national conservatism — also support Ukraine, are in a bind over Trump’s overtures to Russia, The Economist wrote, and their factions find themselves divided over how to deal with the US president.