Trump signals new foreign policy priority: Combat the persecution of Christians

The Biden-Harris administration has prioritized the advancement of the LGBT agenda and climate alarmism in its foreign policy. President Donald Trump has identified a different priority for his future administration: Combat the brutal persecution of Christians around the globe.

Trump noted Wednesday on Truth Social, "Kamala Harris did NOTHING as 120,000 Armenian Christians were horrifically persecuted and forcibly displaced in Artsakh. Christians around the World will not be safe if Kamala Harris is President of the United States."

"When I am President, I will protect persecuted Christians, I will work to stop the violence and ethnic cleansing, and we will restore PEACE between Armenia and Azerbaijan," added Trump.

The Republic of Artsakh, which is also known as Nagorno-Karabakh, is a region in the Caucasus Mountains that lies within Azerbaijan's borders.

While internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan — whose close ally Turkey, formerly the Ottoman Empire, killed 1.5 million Armenians in what is regarded as the first genocide of the 20th century — the region was, at least up until September 2023, home to over 100,000 Armenian Christians who contested Azerbaijan's territorial claims.

The region became autonomous in 1923 while Armenia, the world's oldest Christian country, and Azerbaijan, whose population is 97.3% Muslim, were both still members of the former Soviet Union.

Two bloody wars were fought over the area in the last 30 years — the first in 1988 and the second in 2020.

Azerbaijan — given military assistance by the Biden-Harris administration despite its war crimes and torture of Armenian prisoners — launched a blitzkrieg on the region on Sept. 19, 2023, and saw to the dissolution of the Armenian enclave by Jan. 1.

Azerbaijani forces killed hundreds of ethnic Armenians and added insult to injury by destroying churches and cemeteries. Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Armenians were forced to flee.

'Vice President Harris — whose Administration armed Azerbaijan's genocidal blockade and attack on Artsakh — did not lift a finger or even raise her voice against Azerbaijan’s 2023 aggression.'

Armenia and Azerbaijan have been engaged in peace talks in the months since.

While there has been some grumbling in recent years from the State Department — an official claimed in a September 2023 Senate hearing that the U.S. would not "countenance any action or effort, short-term or long-term, to ethnically cleanse or commit other atrocities against the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh" — the Biden-Harris administration was less than helpful where Armenian Christians were concerned.

The Armenian National Committee of America blasted the Democratic administration in July over its "two-faced policy."

The ANCA said in a statement:

There is no clearer example of the Biden-Harris administration’s two-faced policy towards Armenia than the spineless inaction of USAID Administrator Samantha Power during Azerbaijan’s blockade and ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh. As Azerbaijan deprived Artsakh’s 120,000 Armenians of access to food, fuel, medicine, and humanitarian goods in a brazen violation of international law — Administrator Power refused to acknowledge the dire humanitarian crisis unfolding. The genocidal ethnic cleansing of Artsakh’s entire Armenian population was a humanitarian catastrophe the United States had every opportunity to prevent but instead chose to enable — sacrificing the existence of the region’s indigenous Christian Armenian population for misguided geopolitical interests.

The ANCA noted further that the administration's inaction "will weigh heavily on the minds of Armenian American voters this November — including those in the key swing states of Nevada and Michigan as well as in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania."

As of 2021, there were more than 2 million Americans with Armenian heritage.

In late September, Harris signaled support for Armenian Christians' return to Artsakh.

ANCA executive director Aram Hamparian said in response, "As Vice President, Kamala Harris has had a full year to act on Artsakh's right to return — via a U.S.-led resolution at the U.N. Security Council — yet she has only started talking (to Armenian Americans, not U.N. member states) about this right 40 days before an election in which Armenian voters across key swing states may prove decisive."

"Notably, Vice President Harris — whose Administration armed Azerbaijan's genocidal blockade and attack on Artsakh — did not lift a finger or even raise her voice against Azerbaijan's 2023 aggression. Even at the level of campaign rhetoric, she has not said a word about cutting U.S. military arms and aid to Azerbaijan, or otherwise holding Baku accountable for its crimes," added Hamparian.

Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) echoed Trump Wednesday, writing, "The United States should fight against the persecution of Christians all over the world, and it will when President Trump is back in the White House. Kamala Harris has done nothing."

Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy wrote, "Very gratified to see President Trump speak out about the persecution & displacement of Armenian Christians in Artsakh. It’s our job to call out the hypocrisy of the foreign policy establishment & we refuse to simply sweep this issue under the rug."

Artsakh is hardly the only place where brutal regimes and radicals have sought to crush Christians and their faith.

According to the persecution watchdog Open Doors, 317 million Christians around the world face very high or extreme levels of persecution. Last year, 4,998 Christians were reportedly slaughtered for faith-related reasons; 14,766 churches and Christian properties were attacked; and over 295,000 Christians were displaced.

The top 10 worst countries for Christians in terms of persecution were, in this order: North Korea, Somalia, Libya, Eritrea, Yemen, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sudan, Iran, and Afghanistan.

Supposedly developed nations farther up the list aren't a great deal better. China, for instance, subjects Christians to routine torture, detentions, and executions.

Persecution and attacks have also been on the rise in Western nations, including the U.S., Canada, France, and the United Kingdom.

Arielle Del Turco, director of the Family Research Council's Center for Religious Liberty, indicated in a report earlier this year that between 2018 and 2023, there were nearly 1,000 acts of hostility against American churches.

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