RUTHFULLY YOURS

In recent weeks, the Trump administration has condemned Chinese repression of Muslims in Xinjiang, hosted a conference of 106 countries to discuss religious freedom around the world, and announced the formation of the International Religious Freedom Alliance. Mr. Pompeo called China’s mass repression of the largely Muslim Uighur people “the stain of the century.” On Wednesday Mr. Trump met at the White House with 27 people from around the world who have faced persecution for their religious beliefs.

At first glance, the embrace of human rights by the Trump White House seems odd. Mr. Trump has made no secret of his disdain for the idea that promoting human rights overseas should be a major theme of American foreign policy. Outreach to leaders such as Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un and Mohammed bin Salman is predicated on the president’s willingness to overlook their dismal records on human rights. And that an administration whose domestic supporters attack an opponent by chanting “Send her back!” should head a global drive for human rights strikes even many Republicans as improbable.

But the political logic behind the administration’s Wilsonian pivot is strong. Team Trump needs to unify its populist and conservative supporters in the U.S. even as it builds a coalition against Chinese overreach in Asia and beyond. Incorporating a vision of human rights focused on religious liberty helps on both fronts.

The fight for religious freedom integrates foreign and domestic concerns for many of Mr. Trump’s Christian supporters, who face aggressive secularism in the U.S. and follow closely the persecution of Christians abroad. Even American Christians concerned about “creeping Shariah” and other alleged consequences of Muslim immigration to Western countries rally to the cause of religious liberty as a global value.

This is partly because respect for religious liberty is woven into the DNA of conservative American Christianity, rooted as it is in radical sectarian movements that endured decades of persecution in Europe. But it’s also because consistent American advocacy for religious liberty highlights the way many Muslim-majority countries as well as Communist China deny Christians the right to worship.

Internationally, the focus on religious liberty supports American efforts to build a broad coalition to balance against China. This is not unusual; religion was an important aspect of American diplomacy in the Cold War. President Dwight Eisenhower in particular stressed the importance of uniting religious believers in the U.S. and abroad against the atheistic and intolerant Soviet Union. In our times, a similar emphasis serves American interests by highlighting China’s increasingly totalitarian policies. That the U.S. is doing more than Iran, Turkey or Pakistan to support oppressed Muslims in China does not go unnoticed in the Muslim world.

The Trump administration’s hesitance to support an expansive vision of human rights disturbs many advocates. The administration does not believe access to abortion is a human right, and while supporting tolerance for gays and other sexual minorities, it seeks to shift the emphasis in human-rights diplomacy away from that issue. When American society is deeply split over moral issues at home, it’s inevitable that the debate spills over into human-rights policy abroad.

Divided as Americans may be over what a human-rights agenda should mean in concrete terms, a concern for morality in foreign policy remains deeply embedded in American politics. Whether they are trying to mobilize support at home or build coalitions abroad, American presidents need to invoke universal moral standards and appeal to concepts larger than the national interest narrowly understood. Even under the “America First” president, universal values play a role in foreign policy.

Integrating American values with the demands of realpolitik is always hard. We can neither ignore China’s treatment of the Uighurs nor make it the only issue in the U.S.-China relationship. And Americans are much more willing to lecture the world about human rights than to undertake expensive and risky interventions to uphold them in the world’s crisis zones.

The U.S. will not always live up to the standards it proclaims. No country can. But those who hope for a purely “realist” American foreign policy will continue to face disappointment; Woodrow Wilson will not go away.