Amnesty International hold a protest to mark US President Donald Trump's first 100 days in office (29 April), outside the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square, London. Yui Mok/PA Images. All rights reserved.After 100 days in office, the Trump Administration continues to wear its abject disdain for human rights on its sleeve. It has threatened to leave the United Nations Human Rights Council and has signalled Trump’s enthusiasm for the most extreme forms of torture. A number of his executive orders have directly contravened the principles of human rights, including his racist attack on particular categories of immigrants and his restrictions on a woman’s right to choose.
Wednesday’s decision to slash corporation tax demonstrates clearly that there is one category of ‘persons’ to which Trump’s disdain for human rights does not apparently extend. His ‘corporate cabinet’ is packed with individuals who have made their name proclaiming the rights of corporations. Top of the list is the Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch, who in a number of key cases has ruled against the claims of workers, to uphold the rights of their corporate employers.
The administration’s determination to uphold the rights of big business over the rights of the people has attracted condemnation from Human Rights Watch. The organisation has described the administration’s choice of Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency as alarming – with good reason. One of Pruitt’s earliest decisions was to allow continued use of the pesticide chlorpyrifos, despite conclusions from US government scientists that it can cause learning deficits, impacts on brain development, reproductive health problems, and increased rates of cancer, particularly in children.
