Trans-Pacific View | Diplomacy

The US Hasn’t Designated Violators of International Religious Freedom Since 2023

In its latest report, USCIRF has urged the Trump administration to finally make designations of egregious violators of religious freedoms.

For more than a quarter-century, American foreign policy regarding international religious freedom has been generated through a thoughtful series of reports and designations followed by either punitive sanctions or specific waivers. This system has, in some ways, stalled. 

Through its annual reports, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) recommends certain states for designation as “countries of particular concern” (CPCs). USCIRF, an independent, bipartisan federal body that monitors the status of freedom of religion abroad in order to make policy recommendations to the president, secretary of state, and Congress, has continued to do the job the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) mandated it to do.

Commissioner Mohamed Elsanousi told The Diplomat following USCIRF’s report launch on Capitol Hill on March 4, that the countries recommended for CPC designation are states where “we see the violation of religious freedom is systematic, it’s ongoing, it’s egregious and it is worsening.”

In her remarks during the launch , Commissioner Rachel Laser noted that, “The Trump administration in its first year followed the previous Biden administration in failing to make new… designations, with the notable exception of Nigeria.

“We’re now well over two years since the last designations were made in late 2023, and they’re expired,” she added.

In its March 2026 annual report, USCIRF recommended a number of Asian countries for designation as CPCs: Afghanistan, China, India, Myanmar, North Korea, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Vietnam. Additionally, USCIRF recommends including on the State Department’s Special Watch List (SWL) Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, and Uzbekistan.

(For the full list, including entities also designated, please refer to USCIRF’s full report)

The IRFA provides a menu of punitive options which administrations can then pursue to pressure designated countries. Administrations can also opt to waive sanctions, despite designation. Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, for example, have been designated CPCs since 2016 and 2014, respectively, but have always been granted waivers, with the State Department offering only the barest of explanations: “the important national interest of the United States.” 

Typically, the U.S. State Department announces its designations some time after USCIRF’s recommendations are made and then releases its own annual International Religious Freedom (IRF) report, also mandated under IRFA. But the State Department hasn’t designated CPCs since December 2023, when the Biden administration announced its designations that year. The Biden State Department then released its IRF covering 2023 in June 2024, missing the statutory deadline of May 1. 

The Biden administration did not make new designations before leaving office in January 2025.

Aside from a presidential destination of Nigeria as a CPC in October 2025, the Trump administration has also failed to made designations. The State Department has not released an IRF report since the June 2024 version, covering conditions in 2023.

One reason is arguably the State Department’s spring 2025 reorganization and the Trump administration’s downsizing of the U.S. government more broadly. At State, the Office for International Religious Freedom was moved under the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL). USCIRF noted in its latest report that this actually reversed the first Trump administration’s moving of the office out from under the bureau – at the time argued to be a promotion of the issue’s relevance.

USCIRF further commented in its report that, “While some have argued that merging the IRF Office into DRL could diminish IRF........

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