The Decline of American Soft Power: Implications for International Human Rights and American Influence Abroad

 The United States’ forfeiture of influence in international human rights law matters and in aid provision to other countries could create a power vacuum for authoritarian world powers, resulting in decreased economic opportunity abroad. In early February, United States President Donald Trump issued an executive order withdrawing the United States from the United Nations Human Rights Council, signaling an official departure from the international human rights stage.[1] Two weeks prior, Trump had issued an executive order mandating a “90-day pause in United States foreign development assistance for assessment of programmatic efficiencies and consistency with United States foreign policy.”[2] In furtherance of this “assessment,” Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency effectively shut down the United States Agency for International Development (“USAID”), abruptly freezing funding and laying off thousands of aid workers at home and abroad. The funding freeze placed aid workers and aid recipients in precarious positions. For instance, one scientist running a clinical trial in South Africa with USAID funding was directed to cease any medical assistance to the subjects even though they had been implanted with experimental medical devices.[3] This immediate, inconsiderate cessation of aid, directly placing former aid recipients in harm’s way, may lead to anger and distrust of the United States abroad. 

While President Trump’s withdrawal of the United States from the United Nations Human Rights Council exemplifies the United States’ declining role as an international human rights leader, the international presence of civil society workers from USAID and other programs nevertheless fostered American soft power, promoting goodwill and democratic ideals. Some human rights scholars, like Gráinne de Búrca, have argued that robust civil society is more effective at improving human rights standards and democratic outcomes than top-down treaty enforcement from the United Nations Human Rights Council, whereby treaties may impose a “one-size-fits-all standard on diverse parts of the world.”[4] Though recent warnings of a Constitutional Crisis, that the Executive Branch is operating without effective checks from the legislative and judicial branches, may indicate that the United States is not currently in the best position to promote democratic ideals, USAID, created to not only provide aid but improve America’s image abroad, enhanced American influence and even created economic opportunity for the United States as aid recipients became trading partners.[5] 

American apathy toward the United Nations Human Rights Council across both of Trump’s terms coupled with increasing influence of authoritarian countries on the Council could align the international human rights regime with authoritarian agendas. Scholar Yu-Jie Chen argues that China has used the Council to “tilt the international order in favor of the Chinese party-state’s interests in monopolizing its own domestic rule” and divert attention from its own human rights violations, such as China’s internment of the Uyghurs.[6] With American civil society incapacitated, the United States no longer provides a soft power counterweight to the United Nations Human Rights Council’s tainted and sometimes ineffective top-down regime. Though the current administration’s hostility toward USAID suggests that its efficacy is currently up for debate , the strong likelihood of lost trust abroad could create a power vacuum for China’s own civil society workers, prompting diminished influence and economic opportunity for the United States.

Kate Wittpenn is a staff member of Fordham International Law Journal Volume XLVIII.

[1] See Exec. Order No. 14199, Withdrawing the United States from and Ending Finding to Certain United Nations Organizations and Reviewing United States Support to All International Organization, 90 Fed. Reg. 9275 (Feb. 4, 2025).

[2] Exec. Order No. 14169, Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid, 90 FR 8619 (Jan. 20, 2025).

[3] The Daily, The Demise of U.S.A.I.D – and American Soft Power, N.Y. Times, at 19:35 (Feb. 11, 2025).

[4] See Gráinne de Búrca, Human Rights Experimentalism 23, 34, 38 (N.Y.U., Working Paper No. 17-06, 2017).

[5]  The Daily, supra note 3, at 9:20, 15:20.

[6] Yu-Jie Chen, “Authoritarian International Law” in Action? Tribal Politics in the Human Rights Council, 54 Vand. J. of Transnat'l L. 1203, 1205 (2021).

This is a student blog post and in no way represents the views of the Fordham International Law Journal.