Far from curbing Donald Trump’s assault on the global human rights system, several Latin American governments are using the U.S. president’s policies as an excuse to commit abuses, the NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) warned Wednesday. “With the United States undermining the global human rights system, who will stand up in its defense?” HRW Executive Director Philippe Bolopion asked in the introduction to the organization’s 2026 World Report, which will be presented in Mexico City and Washington.
So far, the answer is not coming from Latin America, the report suggests. “Different countries in the region are using both Trump’s policies and his rhetoric as an excuse to commit abuses” against nationals and foreigners, Juanita Goebertus, director of HRW’s Americas Division, told AFP.
As an example, the report notes that El Salvador received 252 Venezuelans deported from the United States and detained them at the Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot). At that mega-prison, inaugurated in 2023 by President Nayib Bukele, HRW was able to “document that (the deportees) suffered systematic torture,” Goebertus added in a telephone interview.
The lawyer lamented that countries “that historically have been very committed to the defense of human rights, like Panama and Costa Rica,” have held foreigners deported by the United States “without any justification.” One year after Trump’s return to the White House, “the U.S. government has had an undoubtedly negative influence” in the region, whose response to the Republican’s migration policies “is very unfortunate,” she said.
Trump’s cuts to U.S. international assistance, through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), had an impact that was “extremely serious” in Latin America and the Caribbean, Goebertus said. The echoes of this policy also reach countries such as Ecuador and Peru, which, like El Salvador, passed laws “for the arbitrary closure of human rights organizations,” taking advantage of the “weakening” of NGOs.
Torture and forced disappearance
HRW stresses that, with mixed results, Latin American governments that applied tough-on-crime policies recorded an increase in human rights violations. The report says Bukele’s administration carried out “arbitrary and mass detentions,” “torture,” and “forced disappearance” to achieve a significant decrease in gang-related violence.
Ecuador, meanwhile, ended 2025 with a record homicide rate of 52 murders per 100,000 inhabitants, while its security forces engaged in “extrajudicial executions” and “forced disappearances,” according to HRW. Against this backdrop, the right continues to consolidate its position in Latin America after conservative Laura Fernández won Costa Rica’s presidential election last Sunday.
Even Mexico, governed by the left, is experiencing a “militarization” of public security, it was explained, citing Lisa Sánchez, a specialist in security and drug policy. Claudia Sheinbaum’s government “is not exempt from having taken other (…) regressive measures,” such as the reform that established the popular election of judges, Sánchez added. She argued that Trump’s pressure to curb irregular migration and drug trafficking in Mexico worsened the country’s human rights situation.
