Rex Tillerson: ‘The US can’t afford to condition foreign relationships on human rights’

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson announced on Wednesday that the United States can’t always afford to condition foreign relationships and national security efforts on countries adopting US values like human rights.

“In some circumstances, if you condition our national security efforts on someone adopting our values, we probably can’t achieve our national security goals,” Tillerson said. “It really creates obstacles to our ability to advance our national security interests, our economic interests.”

Tillerson said that there would be certain circumstances in which the US will require other nations to “adopt certain actions as to how they treat people” for the two countries to cooperate, but the US would not advocate for its values as leverage in all instances.

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“It doesn’t mean that we leave those values on the sidelines,” Tillerson said. “It doesn’t mean that we don’t advocate for and aspire to freedom, human dignity, and the treatment of people the world over.”

Human rights groups have condemned the Trump administration for cosying up to unsavoury leaders like Egypt’s Al-Sisi and Duterte of the Philippines.

On the anniversary of his first 100 days in office Human Rights Watch published an analysis of how many of the policies and pledges made by the Trump administration pose profound threats to the human rights of people both in the US and abroad.