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Donald M Fraser c. 1960
February 20, 1924 – June 2, 2019 |
How Pro-Democracy Foreign Policy Can Survive Trump — And Emerge Stronger Than Everby Larry Diamond, William L. Clayton Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution and the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University.
From Notus, February 22, 2026
In August 1973, Rep. Donald Fraser, a Democrat from Minnesota, convened a series of House hearings on human rights and American foreign policy. It was a dark moment for democracy globally and in the United States. In the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos had declared martial law and was brutalizing the opposition to hang on to power. In Rhodesia, Ian Smith was fighting a bloody war to preserve white minority rule. Within a few weeks, Augusto Pinochet would stage a murderous coup and establish a dictatorship in Chile. Around the globe, many other autocracies were benefiting from American silence or complicity. And totalitarianism reigned in China, the Soviet Union and across Eastern Europe.
Here at home, the United States appeared to be in no mood — or position — to evangelize to others about democracy. The Nixon administration’s foreign policy was run by Henry Kissinger, the quintessential realist, who privileged global power politics over democracy and human rights. The Watergate cover-up — which would accelerate in October 1973 with Nixon’s firings of the special prosecutor and the attorney general in the infamous “Saturday Night Massacre” — suggested that our own democracy was far too shaky to serve as an example to others. No wonder Daniel Patrick Moynihan — returning in 1975 from a stint as U.S. ambassador to India, which, under Indira Gandhi, was spiraling toward emergency rule — would observe that liberal democracy “is where the world was, not where it is going.”
Yet Fraser believed that another trajectory was possible. His hearings would lead to the creation of a State Department Bureau for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs. His work would also help pass a 1974 amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act ending or substantially reducing U.S. security assistance to states with “a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights,” including torture and forced disappearances. That amendment also required the State Department to produce annual reports on the human rights practices of countries receiving aid. Soon, these small steps would be joined by larger political and historical currents to breathe new life into the idea that the United States could serve as an advocate for democracy and human rights abroad.
Today, a half century after Fraser’s hearings, the common belief among scholars and analysts is akin to the Moynihan view from the 1970s: that the America of internationalism, liberalism, alliances and democracy promotion is who we were, not who we are or will (in the foreseeable future) be again. In marked contrast to the first Trump administration, when the president mostly ignored, but did not destroy, the instruments of democracy promotion in our foreign policy — and when many of his leading officials believed in this mission — the second Trump administration has unleashed an institutional and rhetorical bloodbath against U.S. democracy promotion.
The big blows have included the closure of the U.S. Agency for International Development, which had recently been spending nearly $2 billion annually in grants to support democratic institutions, elections, civil society, independent media, anti-corruption efforts, and the rule of law; the decimation of the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (a successor to the original Human Rights Bureau), which was distributing another $345 million annually in such grants; the gutting and politicization of the annual State Department human rights reports; the effort to eliminate the Voice of America; the administration’s expressed admiration for illiberal political actors in Europe, like Hungary’s long-ruling autocratic prime minister, Viktor Orbán, and Germany’s chilling far-right party, Alternative for Germany; the humiliating treatment of and diminished assistance for a democracy in Ukraine that is still fighting for its life against ruthless Russian aggression; and the stirring of Venezuelan hopes for a transition to democracy with the capture of Nicolás Maduro, only to dash them by recognizing his authoritarian successor, Delcy Rodríguez.
Meanwhile, thanks to, among other things, the belittling and attempted extortion of our democratic allies in Europe in a ham-handed attempt to gain sovereignty over Greenland, the key international partnerships we have built to defend and advance freedom are under huge strain. Unlike last time, when our democratic allies in Europe, Asia and Latin America could view President Trump as an aberration once he left office, this time (so the argument goes), trust in America may be permanently ruptured.
And this potential rupture is not simply about our actions abroad, but also about who we have become as a country. With Trump’s withering assaults on our democratic norms, laws and institutions, the system of government we have spent decades trying to promote abroad is in greater danger at home than at any time since the Civil War. How could we ever again possibly serve as a positive force for freedom in the world when our democracy is in such steep decline?
Given all this, what future American president, even if he or she wanted to, would spend scarce political capital and budgetary resources to renew America’s mission of democracy promotion — especially when the task of domestic economic regeneration, social healing and political repair will be so massive? And so, today’s conventional wisdom is: Goodbye to democracy promotion. It had a good run for half a century. It was nice while it lasted.
But this thinking is ahistorical, defeatist and unimaginative. Even though Trump has done great harm to the principles and institutions underlying U.S. democracy promotion, the damage is neither complete nor irreversible. Like in 1973, when Donald Fraser held his hearings, members of Congress from both parties are already pushing back. Impossible as it may seem, the moment to think ambitiously will come again, giving future presidents an opportunity to revive one of the best and most successful strains in American foreign policy — and to update it for an era that is more challenging and resource-constrained, but still full of opportunities for freedom.
The notion that America stands for something — other than naked mercantilism and territorial aggrandizement — has been a crucial element in our economic success and geopolitical security since World War II. We built the great institutions of the liberal, rules-based international order — with its emphasis on collective security, nonaggression, international negotiations, freer trade, monetary stability, development assistance, humanitarian relief, human rights and the rule of law — not simply for idealistic reasons. We did so to contain what John F. Kennedy called in his 1961 inaugural address “the common enemies of man”: war, tyranny, poverty and disease. We recognized that we would be more prosperous and secure when we worked to help other nations rise above these scourges.
There has always been a countervailing strain of thinking, of course — the bleak analysis starkly articulated by Trump’s deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, who, echoing aggressive autocrats throughout the ages, recently declared that we live in a world “that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power.”
This emphasis on power over values also seemed ascendant in the 1970s. And yet just a few years after Fraser’s hearings, a little-known former governor of Georgia with idealism, fresh judgment and deep Christian faith would win the presidency. Jimmy Carter called for an American foreign policy that balanced “tough realism” with “idealism,” in the form of support for freedom and humanitarian assistance. He vowed to “begin by letting it be known that” America’s view of “any nation, whatever its political system,” would be affected “if it deprives its people of basic human rights.” Carter would adopt Fraser’s recommendations and go beyond them. His diplomatic pressure on, and reduced arms sales to, Latin American military regimes contributed to a wave of transitions back to democracy in that region.
In the 1980 presidential campaign, Ronald Reagan savaged Carter’s foreign policy. But within a year and a half of taking office, Reagan — a sunny optimist by nature who understood that corrupt, repressive regimes, including the Soviet Union and its client states, faced unsolvable legitimacy crises — would give the most visionary speech in favor of democracy promotion of any American president. “Freedom,” he declared in London, using a formulation reminiscent of both Carter and the American founders, “is not the sole prerogative of a lucky few but the inalienable and universal right of all human beings.” He committed the United States to a global campaign to aid popular struggles for freedom worldwide, and to “foster the infrastructure of democracy — the system of a free press, unions, political parties, universities — which allows a people to choose their own way.”
Subsequently, Reagan would work with Rep. Dante Fascell, a Democrat from Florida, to persuade Congress to establish the National Endowment for Democracy, a bipartisan, nongovernmental but publicly funded organization that assisted democratic political parties, elections, mass media, trade unions, think tanks and business associations around the world. I worked with the NED for over 30 years — as co-editor of its publication, the Journal of Democracy, and for a time as co-director of its studies center. That means I can’t claim to be fully objective; but it also means I got to see at close range its unique effectiveness as a lean and principled instrument for supporting efforts to achieve and deepen democracy, human rights and good governance.
I offer this history now because there are parallels that, in the current moment, should help those of us who care about democracy promotion to resist resignation and despair. Like in the 1970s and ’80s, most of our authoritarian adversaries face immediate or potential challenges to their legitimacy. The regimes in Iran and Venezuela are hated by most of their people and mainly persist by force, fraud and fear. Corruption and coercion are also the main pillars sustaining numerous other autocracies, from North Korea to Nicaragua, from Uganda to Uzbekistan.
Dictatorships that had delivered economic growth, like China and Vietnam, face a different potential problem. The legitimacy of these regimes is mainly based on economic performance. But with development comes greater expectations for political voice and accountability, and with a slowing of development comes social frustration. Economic growth is ebbing in China, and the pace of protests is rising. Repression can snuff out dissent, but it also breeds new sources of resentment, a turn to more creative means, and, as The Economist observed, “a growing connection between individuals inside China and activists on the outside internet.” At the same time, Xi Jinping’s policy failures and recurring purges are likely to breed “animosity, discontent, and resentment among élites,” even within the Communist Party. We don’t know where all this is heading, but it is a good bet that China and other dictatorships that have wagered their longevity on economic performance will face a crisis of legitimacy in the next decade or two. It will not necessarily be the Soviet crisis of economic dysfunction and stagnation, but it will surface deep contradictions in the authoritarian model — contradictions that can only be resolved with political reform.
Let’s posit, for the moment, a future president who does not share Trump’s evident disdain for democracy. Why on earth would such a president want to retreat from the game at this crucial historical juncture? Why would he or she unilaterally disarm in the war of ideas with China and Russia — a contest that will shape which values, rules and principles will govern a changing world? Only a former great power, ready to surrender not only its global leadership but ultimately its national security and prosperity, would do such a pointless and reckless thing.
This is where national pride, national interest, and national historical memory meet. Surrendering in the contest of values between democracy and authoritarianism could mean American retreat and humiliation as China’s neo-totalitarian regime increasingly dominates the global economy, the march of technology and the rules of the future international order. It could mean allowing China to swallow Taiwan and its leadership role in semiconductors, or permitting it to dominate the South China Sea, the Pacific Islands, and much of the world’s resources and sea lanes. It means letting Russia have its way in Europe.
All the countries that most seriously threaten our national security with aggression, terrorism, crime and pandemics are autocracies or decaying democracies. Where have the recent waves of illegal immigration come from? They have originated in corrupt, lawless, violent states, with repressive governments or no effective government at all. Our most reliable trading partners are democracies. Our most secure supply chains largely run through democracies. Our best prospects for collaboration to master the great scientific frontiers of AI, quantum computing and fusion energy lie with other democracies.
Post-Trump, future presidents and their foreign-policy teams will have to consider these obvious strategic points in favor of democracy promotion. But what about the American public? Haven’t they permanently turned against the concepts of foreign aid and supporting democracy abroad? Actually, public opinion on democracy promotion is largely supportive. What Americans oppose is not helping people achieve freedom but rather using military force to do it. Last March, a Pew Research Center poll found that solid majorities support giving foreign aid not only to distribute medicine (83%) and food and clothing (78%), but for economic development (63%) and, crucially, for “strengthening democracy in other countries” (61%).
Moreover, Americans’ feelings about these questions are not static; they can be moved by persuasive leaders who explain what is at stake, as Reagan once did. In 2019, I co-led an experiment called “America in One Room.” We brought 523 Americans from around the country to Dallas for a long weekend in which they deliberated about politics and, with the aid of balanced briefing papers and insights from experts with different views, had the opportunity to change their opinions. On foreign policy, this representative sample of voters repeatedly gravitated toward more international engagement. Approval of using “diplomacy and financial support to promote democracy and human rights throughout the world” started at 59%. But once participants had a chance to hear different arguments and discuss them with their fellow citizens, that number jumped to 72% overall, and from 43% to 62% among Republicans. In addition, after discussion, support for defending NATO allies increased from 72% to 83% and spiked 18 percentage points among Republicans.
In recent months, my colleague Michael McFaul has been traveling around the country speaking (mainly in red states and communities) about his new book, “Autocrats vs. Democrats,” which argues that the liberal international order is not yet dead, but must be refashioned. His best applause lines, he reports, are when he makes “the argument that the United States stands for more than just power, but also ideals of democracy, freedom and liberty.”
And it isn’t just rank-and-file voters who believe in democracy promotion. On Capitol Hill, the concept continues to enjoy broad support. Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia and Republican Sen. Todd Young of Indiana sit on the NED board of directors, which is chaired by former six-term Republican Rep. Peter Roskam. True, Republicans like Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart — chair of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs — must these days offer their support for democracy promotion in a delicate balancing act that also includes backing for Trump’s “America First” foreign policy. But in speaking last month from the House floor against an amendment to kill NED funding, Díaz-Balart praised the organization as “a brilliant initiative” that strengthens “democracy forces from within” and supports “those struggling for freedom in the most repressive places in the world.” He added, “Anti-American tyrannies are where NED is effective” and argued that “there is nothing better for our long-term national security” than working for democratic transitions in such tyrannies.
The ranking Democrat on the same subcommittee, Rep. Lois Frankel, made a similarly impassioned case. Speaking as the mother of a U.S. Marine veteran who fought in two wars, she said, “The conflicts that put our sons and our daughters in harm’s way almost always arise in places where democracy has failed or never taken root.” Defunding NED “would be a serious mistake and a dangerous retreat from American values,” she continued. “These investments are not charity. They are prevention. They save American lives, taxpayer dollars and future troop deployments.”
In the end, the amendment to defund NED was overwhelmingly defeated in the House, 291-127. Senate support for NED remains so strong that the body endorsed it on a simple voice vote. And not only did the Jan. 29 congressional agreement on international affairs spending for FY26 preserve full funding for NED, it also included substantial funding for the State Department’s Democracy Fund as well as for Voice of America and its affiliated regional broadcasters.
Americans and many of their leaders are not, in short, ready to give up on democracy promotion and other traditional features of an internationalist foreign policy. Future presidents who care enough to make the case for democracy promotion — to their colleagues in Washington and to voters across the country — will find themselves pushing on a surprisingly open door.
But what would democracy promotion in the post-Trump era look like in practice? History offers a roadmap as to what works and what doesn’t. Military force as a means of promoting democracy has typically failed. Military conquest and occupation did succeed in restoring democracy to post-war Germany and Japan, but we did not go to war to “democratize” those two dictatorships, and it was only our total victory — and significant planning, adaptation and assistance after the war — that enabled success. The only other two success stories of democratization through force are Reagan’s invasion of Grenada in 1983 to restore democracy after a Marxist coup, and George H.W. Bush’s invasion of Panama in 1989 to depose an unpopular, drug-dealing military dictator, Manuel Noriega. All these instances had unique elements that are unlikely to be repeated — and indeed they were not repeated during the 2003 invasion of Iraq or Trump’s lightning strike to capture the ruler of Venezuela.
Besides military force, the most coercive tool to promote democracy is broad sanctions imposed on authoritarian economies. This approach, too, has a dubious record of inducing political change. Sanctions can deepen a country’s slide into poverty and hardship — accelerating the downward spiral caused by a regime’s corruption and mismanagement, as in Iran, Venezuela and Zimbabwe. But while it is often assumed that the deeper a people sink into poverty, the more likely they will be to rebel, economic ruin more often causes despair, fragmentation and mass emigration. In Venezuela, nearly a quarter of the population has fled the country. In North Korea, which has experienced decades of isolation and economic immiseration, the totalitarian regime stands, seemingly secure.
Regimes do collapse when their own resources are squeezed, their ideological hegemony and informational monopoly unravel, and their loyalists start to defect. And smart policies from the United States can help to bring this about. These efforts can start by identifying an opposition from or in that country. In virtually every case of tyranny, there are democrats in exile, and they have means, however tenuous and difficult, of communicating with people on the ground who want change. They may even communicate with people in these regimes who have become disillusioned — and who can be induced to defect when the time is ripe. This always requires a country-specific strategy that tracks and analyzes the relevant actors, their motives, alliances and resources. The analysis must be continuously updated, and it requires significant investments in intelligence.
Steps can be taken, meanwhile, to reshape the calculations of regime elites. What are the revenue streams that sustain the regime? How can we squeeze and disrupt those? In the case of Venezuela, elites reportedly enrich themselves through narcotrafficking, human trafficking and gold exports. In the case of North Korea, the regime earns revenue from international crime — such as cybercrime (especially cryptocurrency theft), counterfeiting and illegal drug production. Intelligence operations and targeted sanctions against government elites and their families can disrupt and subvert these activities. The goal is to bring elites to the point where they face a choice: go into exile with their ill-gotten wealth, hang on and risk losing everything, or be part of the solution and pursue political opening and reform.
People living in autocracies also need authentic information, helpful analysis, democratic ideas and hope. The autocracy’s information monopoly must be broken. For the U.S. to help on this front, we would need substantial new investments in organization and infrastructure. The reason we need new investments is because of cuts in this area that span decades — beginning with the decision to shutter the U.S. Information Agency in 1999. For nearly half a century after World War II, USIA had been a freestanding, focused means to disseminate news and ideas to people living in closed societies. Unfortunately, when the Cold War ended and pressure mounted to retrench, many thought it wasn’t needed anymore. USIA was terminated, and its professionals were merged into a new “public diplomacy” cone of the State Department.
That part of the State Department has struggled in the absence of strong leadership, adequate resources and effective organization. The top position — under secretary of state for public diplomacy — has been occupied by 20 individuals in a Senate-confirmed or acting role since it was established in October 1999. As a 2024 paper from the Center for Strategic and International Studies argues, “This lack of institutional continuity has prevented the development of an organized and coherent strategy for implementation across the Department of State, let alone the entire U.S. government.” And, of course, the Trump administration has made the situation immeasurably worse by attacking the Voice of America and our larger system of international broadcasting to unfree peoples, which includes Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia and Middle East Broadcasting — all at a time when China is boldly escalating its ideological and informational competition with the U.S.
