The United States will speak out about human rights everywhere including in allies and at home, Secretary of State Antony Blinken vowed Tuesday, turning a page from Donald Trump as he bemoaned deteriorations around the world. Presenting the State Department’s first human rights report under President Joe Biden, the new top US diplomat took some of his most pointed, yet still veiled, swipes at the approach of the Trump administration. “Some have argued that it’s not worth it for the US to speak up forcefully for human rights — or that we should highlight abuse only in select countries, and only in a way that directly advances our national interests,” Blinken told reporters in clear reference to Trump’s approach. “But those people miss the point. Standing up for human rights everywhere is in America’s interests,” he said. “And the Biden-Harris administration will stand against human rights abuses wherever they occur, regardless of whether the perpetrators are adversaries or partners.” Blinken ordered the return of assessments in the annual report on countries’ records on access to reproductive health, removed under the staunchly anti-abortion Trump administration. Blinken also denounced a commission of his predecessor Mike Pompeo, an evangelical Christian seen as having presidential aspirations, that aimed to refocus core rights — an effort that some activists said was intended to de-emphasize LGBTQI and women’s equality. “There is no hierarchy that makes some rights more important than others,” Blinken said. In another shift in tone from Trump, Blinken said the United States acknowledged its own challenges, including “systemic racism.” “That’s what separates our democracy from autocracies: our ability and willingness to confront our own shortcomings out in the open, to pursue that more perfect union.” ‘The wrong direction’ Blinken voiced alarm over abuses around the world including in China, again speaking of “genocide” being committed against the Uyghur community. The report estimated that more than one million Uyghurs and other members of mostly Muslim communities had been rounded up in internment camps in the western region of Xinjiang and that another two million are subjected to re-education training each day.