Editor's note: Yuan Sha, a special commentator on current affairs for CGTN, is deputy director at the Department for Global Governance and International Organization Studies under the China Institute of International Studies. The article reflects the author's views and not necessarily those of CGTN.

The Report on Human Rights Violations in the United States in 2024, released by China's State Council Information Office on August 17, exposes the profound disparity between America's self-proclaimed human rights leadership and its human rights practices.

Through six thematic chapters, the report methodically deconstructs the inherent hypocrisy in American human rights practice and discourse, and reveals how systemic failures in American democracy, social welfare, racial justice, vulnerable groups' rights and immigration policy as well as its global hegemony have eroded fundamental rights at home and abroad.

Systemic failures of U.S. human rights at home

The report starts with the failure of American democracy, as the 2024 U.S. general election laid bare the money politics that led to rising political strife and even violence. By invoking the data that a record $15.9 billion was spent during the 2024 federal election cycle, the report likens the election as a "carnival of money power games."

The report also details the partisan politics during the elections, such as the Republicans and Democrats' manipulation of gerrymandering, the federal Supreme Court's decision and many states' bills that suppress voters, which disproportionately deprive the right of the elderly, minorities, the disabled and low-income voters to vote.

The report then documents the multi-faceted socioeconomic aspects of U.S. human rights practices in its later chapters. It highlights the high inflation, worsening housing crisis, failing healthcare system, widespread drug abuse and the opioid crisis, rampant gun violence, deeply-entrenched racial discrimination, widespread infringement of women's and children's rights, as well as the humanitarian crisis for migrants in border areas, which have not only widened the wealth gap and hurt the "American dream," but also impaired the basic human rights to life, subsistence and development of ordinary American citizens.

Persistent violations of human rights abroad

On the international front, the U.S., under the guise of "humanitarian intervention," has long been a major disruptor of global peace and human rights. The report poignantly points out American hegemony as a "Terminator of Other Countries' Human Rights." It details the U.S. as an accomplice to the genocide in Gaza, such as the U.S. government's military actions in provision of military and diplomatic support to Israel and exercising its veto power seven times to block United Nations Security Council resolutions calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, resulting in over 100,000 injuries and the displacement of approximately 90 percent of Gaza's population.

The report also stressed that U.S. excessive use of unilateral sanctions is fueling humanitarian crises around the world, with more than 60 percent of low-income countries now under some form of financial penalty and suffering limited access to essential goods like food, fuel and medicine, which increase poverty, hunger, disease and even death rates, especially among children.

Into the year 2025, the U.S. human rights record abroad is expected to further deteriorate. Upon returning to the White House in 2025, President Donald Trump proceeded with his "America First" policy that runs counter to the international human rights cause, including withdrawing from UN bodies and international agreements such as the Human Rights Council, UNESCO and the Paris Climate Accord, as well as halting funding for Palestinian refugees, and enforcing the "largest deportation" of immigrants in U.S. history.

Furthermore, the administration’s unilateral imposition of reciprocal tariffs on almost all trading partners is a blatant abuse of power that undermines the basic human rights of people around the world, by disrupting global supply chains, pushing up inflation, exacerbating inequalities, destabilizing vulnerable societies, and violating multilateral frameworks that protect human livelihoods and dignity especially in the Global South, putting the UN Sustainable Development Goals in jeopardy.

U.S. hypocrisy on human rights

Despite positioning itself as a global "beacon of human rights," the U.S. has consistently failed to uphold the most basic human rights principles at home and in the international realm. With the numerous human rights problems, the U.S. is not bothered to mend democracy at home; instead, it has been wielding human rights as a geopolitical weapon to maintain hegemony.

The U.S. State Department releases its Country Report on Human Rights Practices annually, exemplifying Washington's traditional weaponization of human rights discourse to punish and discipline other sovereign countries. The 2024 Country Reports released in August 2025 conspicuously downplays abuses by itself and close allies, while amplifying unfounded allegations against geopolitical adversaries such as China, Brazil and South Africa, demonstrating the U.S. strategy of playing the human rights card for geopolitical ends rather than for humanitarian causes.

Thus, the Chinese report is aimed at exposing the U.S. systemic failures and inherent hypocrisy on human rights, calling on the international community to a new reckoning on how to return human rights to its core values and take tangible actions to protect the primary human rights to life and development for people around the world.

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