The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Voices for human rights
Republicans and Democrats together hope to force president to take a more active stand against atrocities.
WASHINGTON — In a rare show of bipartisan unity, Republicans and Democrats are planning to try to force President Trump to take a more active stand on human rights in China, preparing veto-proof legislation that would punish top Chinese officials for detaining more than one million Muslims in internment camps.
The effort comes amid growing congressional frustration with Trump’s unwillingness to challenge China over human rights abuses — despite vivid news reports this year outlining atrocities — or to confront such issues globally.
To press Trump into action on China, lawmakers plan to move ahead with legislation that would punish Beijing for its repression of ethnic Uighur Muslims, with enough supporters to compel the president to sign or risk being overruled by Congress ahead of the 2020 election. Versions of the legislation, known as the Uighur Human Rights Policy Act, passed both the House and Senate this year, but its path to the White House was stalled this month by a reconciliation process.
Human rights causes draw rare bipartisan support in Congress, and many Republican lawmakers have broken from Trump on the matter, even as they back the president on most other issues, including defending him against impeachment.
“There’s been a sense by some that the administration hasn’t prioritized human rights in its broader foreign policy,” said Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida. “I don’t think that’s necessarily accurate — but that sense has grown. There’s been a sense that Congress needs to step up.”
How we got here
In November, Congress passed legislation by unanimous consent supporting the Hong Kong protests, forcing Trump to sign the bill. Trump, who had previously said he was “standing with” Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader, risked being overruled by Congress and criticized as weak on China if he vetoed the measure. Still, when Trump signed the bill the night before Thanksgiving, he issued a statement saying he would “exercise executive discretion” in enforcing its provisions.
Lawmakers this year also passed legislation recognizing the 1915 killings of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians as a genocide over Trump’s objections. And they approved a resolution calling for the end of American military support of the war in Yemen, in which a Saudi Arabia-led coalition is bombing civilians. Trump vetoed the measure.
In October, after Trump withdrew American forces just inside Syria’s border, paving the way for a Turkish military operation against Kurdish forces, lawmakers voted to rebuke the administration for the decision and show support for the Kurds, a persecuted group in the Middle East that has fought with American troops against the Islamic State.
China, and Turkey too
In the coming months, Congress is expected to try to pass legislation that would punish Turkey and Saudi Arabia for human rights abuses, though it is unclear whether those efforts would have a veto-proof majority. The effort includes a package of Turkey sanctions sponsored by Sen. Robert Menendez, D-New Jersey, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina. The legislation, which would penalize those who commit human rights abuses in Syria, was approved by the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee in December.
Some human rights issues draw greater bipartisan support than others. China hawks have become ascendant across Congress and in the administration, and many Americans increasingly see China as a threat. Although Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have criticized China on the persecution of Muslims, Trump has said little.
Trump, who has criticized China over its economic practices, has refrained from imposing sanctions on Chinese officials responsible for the camps for fear of jeopardizing the chances of reaching a trade deal.
Many top aides and lawmakers from both parties have pushed for sanctions, but the Treasury Department has opposed the penalties. The Uighur act, which had Rubio and Rep. Christopher H. Smith, R-New Jersey, as sponsors, would compel Trump to impose sanctions on Chen Quanguo, the top Communist Party official in Xinjiang, where the camps are. In October, the Trump administration placed a few Chinese businesses and security organizations on a commercial blacklist because of their suspected roles in Muslim abuses, but some analysts considered that a weak punishment.
Some divides still wide
Other countries are more complicated. Saudi Arabia has been a traditional American ally, and Iran hawks in Congress, who are generally Republican, argue Riyadh is a regional bulwark against Iran.
This month, the Trump administration blocked a move by members of the United Nations Security Council to discuss human rights in North Korea for the second year in a row. Trump has expressed warmth for dictator Kim Jong-un of North Korea and has engaged in personal diplomacy, meeting him at two summits to try, without success, to end North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.
On other prominent issues this year, Trump used his executive power to reject measures to either punish countries for human rights abuses or simply affirm abuses were happening.
Trump vetoed a bipartisan resolution that would have punished Saudi Arabia for its air war in Yemen and the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and permanent resident of the United States. Khashoggi’s death last year — a grisly killing that American intelligence officials have said was ordered by Prince Mohammed bin Salman — reignited a long-simmering effort among lawmakers to cut off support for the Saudi-led bombings in Yemen that have helped create the world’s worst man-made humanitarian crisis.
Four of the six vetoes Trump has issued in his presidency overturned legislative attempts to penalize the kingdom. In May, Trump and Pompeo sparked bipartisan fury by declaring an emergency over Iran that allowed the United States to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan, bypassing a congressional hold on the sales. This fall, in closed door negotiations, the White House blocked similar language from making it into the final version of the annual defense policy bill, a must-pass package of legislation.
Drawing a line
“I’m a big fan of the president on many fronts, but on this, someone has to stand up,” Sen. Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky and a proponent of withdrawing the U.S. from wars, said in a floor speech in June before voting to cut off arms sales to the kingdom.
The White House also recruited multiple Republican senators to block attempts to pass legislation formally recognizing the Armenian genocide. The administration argued the timing of the bill would upend diplomatic relations with Turkey, including when Trump received Turkish President Recep Erdogan at the White House in November. Trump insisted on holding that meeting over the objections of some Republicans who have criticized Turkey, a NATO ally, for attacking the Kurds in Syria.
The legislation finally passed this month.