PARIS — When the US State Department released its annual human rights report last week, it contained many of the usual tough US judgements of other countries. Iran was criticised for restricting freedom of religion and the media; Russia for discriminating against minorities; Eritrea for using torture; Bulgaria for violence against migrants and asylum seekers. The list went on.

What was notably missing this year, however, was the usual fanfare around the report and a news conference promoting it by the new secretary of state, Mr Rex Tillerson, as Democratic and Republican administrations have almost always done.

The State Department dismissed criticism of Mr Tillerson’s absence, which came even from some Republicans. But for observers of US foreign policy, it was hard not to interpret the low-key rollout as another step by the Trump administration away from the United States’ traditional role as a moral authority on the world stage that tries to shape and promote democratic norms, both for their intrinsic value and to create a more secure world.

Interviews with more than a dozen former diplomats, professors, human rights advocates and international politicians, both abroad and in the United States, suggested that the United States under President Donald Trump was poised to cede not only this global role, but also its ability to lead by example.

Many pointed out that the United States’ own actions over the years had eroded its moral standing — Guantanamo Bay, the use of torture on suspected terrorists and the civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, to name a few.

But Mr Trump’s administration stands alone, many experts said, for the divisiveness of its tone toward minorities and the media at home and toward Muslims and migrants abroad, its disparagement of NATO and the European Union and its praise of President Vladimir Putin of Russia, which have blurred distinctions between allies and enemies.

Mr Trump himself recently put the United States on the same moral plane as Russia, when Fox News talk show host Bill O’Reilly protested during an interview that Mr Putin was a killer.

“There are a lot of killers,” Mr Trump quickly responded. “We’ve got a lot of killers. What, do you think our country’s so innocent?”

The comment alarmed many because it underscored an approach by Mr Trump, like the rejection of migrants from certain predominantly Muslim countries, that has stripped much of the moral component from US foreign relations and left him being lectured by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and others about his duties under international law.

Her foreign minister, Mr Sigmar Gabriel, has gone one step further, reminding the United States of its moral duty as the most powerful Western country and one founded by Christian refugees.

“The United States is a country where Christian traditions have an important meaning. Loving your neighbour is a major Christian value, and that includes helping people,” he said recently. “This is what unites us in the West and this is what we want to make clear to the Americans.”

Behind the rhetoric is the idea that moral authority — as amorphous and idealistic as that can sound — has imbued the United States with a special kind of clout in the world, with a power that is different from that wielded by autocrats and dictators or by other big countries like Russia and China.

While the Soviet-era dominance across Eastern Europe undoubtedly was undermined by an expensive Cold War arms race with the United States, it was the Western democratic system and the United States that many people looked to emulate, former diplomats said.

“The Berlin Wall didn’t come down because people were responding to American howitzers,” said Professor Joseph Nye, a former senior State Department official and now a professor at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. “It came down under hammers and bulldozers wielded by people whose minds had been affected by the ideas of the West.”

Acting State Department spokesman Mark C Toner rejected any suggestion that the United States was walking away from its international obligations or that the administration’s statements and policies to date had diminished the United States’ standing.

“We’ve signalled at every level our continued commitment to NATO,” he said. “On Russia, Secretary of State Tillerson has been clear that we would cooperate with Russia wherever possible, but not at the expense of Ukraine or Syria.”

“As for the new executive order,” he added, “this administration isn’t ignoring the plight of refugees or discouraging people from visiting the US. It is simply making the security of the American people its No 1 priority and instituting a temporary pause so that we can evaluate and ensure our vetting processes are as strong as they can possibly be. In short, American diplomacy plays an important role in American security, a security which promotes our prosperity.”

Not all are so convinced. Though in its early stages, Mr Trump’s presidency has for many called into question what kind of role the United States aims to play in the world, and even whether it wants to remain an example for other countries. Abandoning that role will have consequences, some are warning.

If the United States no longer presents an image of religious tolerance — a core component of its moral standing — it undermines its ability to make needed alliances, several diplomats said.

“Even in the days of George W Bush, there was no feeling that Bush was against Muslims,” said Mr Marwan Muasher, a former foreign minister of Jordan and now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he is vice president for studies and oversees research on the Middle East.

“By contrast,” he said, “Mr Trump’s administration has seemed almost to revel in its anti-Islamic sentiments. There is no effort on the administration’s side to reverse that image. There’s no empathy toward the region in any way.

For Mr Hoshyar Zebari, a former foreign minister of Iraq, the initial decision to issue the migrant ban and include Iraq was utterly puzzling as well as deeply unfair, given how many Iraqis had fought on the same side as the Americans against the Islamic State and its precursors in Iraq.

Mr Trump does seem to have been convinced of the importance of Iraq’s role in the fight against Islamic extremism, and the latest version of his immigration ban includes six predominantly Muslim countries, leaving Iraq off the list. Still, the anti-Muslim talk “has emboldened extremists that this is the true face of America,” Mr Zebari said.

Some of the policies Mr Trump seems eager to pursue may also compromise the United States’ ability to lecture China about more tolerance toward Tibetan Buddhists or Uighurs, and Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey about a free news media or tolerance of the Kurds, they noted.

Not everyone agrees that Mr Trump’s approach is a startling departure from US values, however.

Mr Hubert Vdrine, a former French foreign minister, noted that while President Barack Obama may have been “more elegant” and “refined” in his words, he pursued many policies similar to Mr Trump’s, like urging NATO members to do more.

“One cannot describe the international system before Trump as working very well,” Mr Vdrine said. “It’s not as though it was a paradisiacal, idyllic world, and abruptly Trump appeared like some kind of Attila.”

Yet the idea of a moral component in US identity dates to the pilgrims.

The notion became a particularly strong principle in foreign policy after World War I, with the United States playing a leading role in the creation of global organisations.

That moral strand was strengthened by World War II, not only because of the United States’ part in helping to vanquish the Nazis, but also its postwar efforts to help rebuild Europe and form the United Nations.

Now, as the country looks at minimising its commitments to NATO and the European Union, there is the sense that it can no longer be counted on as a reliable partner.

“The most burning question overseas is, ‘Can we rely on the United States to keep its commitments, can we rely on you to lead in the way we expect, are you going to consider the interests of your allies when new deals are made?’” said Ms Michele Flournoy, former undersecretary of defence for policy in the Obama administration.

Instead, Mr Trump seems intent to pursue a “what’s in it for us?” approach to foreign policy much closer to that of Russia, where threats and lethal power are its chief points of leverage and where international relations are often viewed as a zero-sum game. Where that leads is anyone’s guess.

“What is very different is that the Trump administration says very bluntly that ‘America has no responsibility in the world and it will pull back’,” said Ms Laurence Nardon, who runs the North America programme at the French Institute for International Relations in Paris, a prominent think tank.

“Trump will still do things, but in a transactional way,” she added. “He will fight ISIS because it’s perceived as a true and real danger to the United States, and he’ll do deals that benefit the country, but not out of any sense of moral responsibility to help the rest of the world.” NEW YORK TIMES