'Human Rights Are Largely Irrelevant to the Emerging Trump Doctrine'

Donald Trump is the first president in modern history who barely pays lip service to the promotion of universal human rights. On his grand tour of Asia, he stopped in Vietnam, where he failed to press the regime on what Human Rights Watch a “dire” lack of individual freedoms. Senator John McCain : “@POTUS in #Danang & no mention of human rights - Sad.” Instead, Trump prioritized trade and lauded the Vietnamese president for doing “an outstanding job.” Then Trump was off to Manila, where Rodrigo Duterte, the president of the Philippines, is accused of fighting the drug trade through a campaign of extrajudicial killings. Trump claimed he had a “great relationship” with Duterte, and a Philippine spokesman, never mentioned human rights at all.