Project 2025 has rapidly moved from a conservative policy blueprint to a policy agenda with devastating consequences both inside the United States and far beyond its borders. Spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation and a network of conservative organizations, the plan outlines a detailed roadmap for reshaping and dismantling government institutions, rolling back human rights, and transforming U.S. foreign policy into a vehicle to advance Christian nationalism. Since returning to the presidency in 2025, Donald Trump and his key allies have aggressively exported Project 2025 through foreign policy initiatives. GPAHE’s report, “Project 2025 Goes Global,” examines how this agenda has been implemented domestically, and now is being employed worldwide to push anti-democratic and anti-rights policies.
Here are fourteen key takeaways from the report.
- Project 2025 Is a Roadmap to Undermine Democracy and Export the Model Abroad
The report finds that Project 2025 is more than a conservative policy platform. It lays out a detailed plan to restructure the federal government, expand presidential power, and replace large parts of the civil service with political loyalists. At the same time, the initiative seeks to extend this model internationally by aligning U.S. diplomacy and advocacy networks with governments and organizations promoting similar anti-rights agendas.
- The Ideological Foundation Is Christian Nationalism
At the core of Project 2025 is Christian nationalism: the belief that the United States should be governed according to an authoritarian interpretation of Christianity. The movement frames LGBTQ+ rights, gender equality, and reproductive freedom as threats to the nation’s moral order. Its authors argue that restoring Christian authority over public life is necessary to “save” the country, replacing diversity with policies grounded in what they describe as biblical values, which really means undermining fundamental human rights and inclusive democracy.
- The Strategy Mirrors Authoritarian Playbooks
The report finds that Project 2025 draws on ideological frameworks long associated with movements that fuse religion and political power to consolidate control. Central to this vision is the Seven Mountain Mandate, a belief that Christians must take control of key institutions, including government, education, media, business, and culture. Within this framework, diversity and minority rights are treated not as democratic principles but as obstacles to building a Christian nationalist state.
- Trump’s Administration Is Turning the Blueprint Into Policy
Since returning to the presidency in 2025, Trump and several key figures behind Project 2025 have begun implementing the plan into government policy. Executive orders and regulatory changes across federal agencies mirror proposals outlined in the blueprint. Key figures behind the initiative now hold influential positions shaping policy in the country, such as Russell Vought, a principal architect of Project 2025 who now leads the American Office of Management and Budget. Among the most sweeping measures is an executive order redefining sex strictly as male or female across federal policy, a move that erased federal recognition of gender identity and triggered the removal of LGBTQ+ protections. This same effort is part of America’s foreign policy now.
- Civil Rights Protections Are Being Systematically Dismantled
The report documents radical changes across federal policy targeting protections for women, LGBTQ+ people, people of color, and other marginalized communities. Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs have been dismantled across government agencies and federal contractors. This dismantling of civil rights is also pursued internationally, with the administration demanding overseas universities, governments, and contractors end DEI initiatives as well. As reproductive health programs have faced funding cuts and new restrictions tied to abortion policy domestically, the administration has exported its anti-abortion politics overseas. Together, these measures mark a concerning dismantling of civil rights protections that took decades to build.
- Education, Media, and Cultural Institutions Are Under Attack
Federal pressure campaigns have sought to force universities to abandon diversity initiatives and align research priorities with the administration’s agenda. The same demand is being made of universities overseas. Simultaneously, the administration has moved to dismantle or weaken institutions that promote independent journalism and democratic values abroad. The shutdown of Voice of America, which for decades broadcast independent news into authoritarian countries, is highlighted as a striking example, silencing a major global platform for free press while reinforcing the report’s warning that Project 2025 seeks to reshape education, media, and cultural institutions to fit its ideological vision.
- U.S. Foreign Policy Is Being Weaponized to Advance an Anti-Rights Agenda
U.S. foreign policy is being reshaped to promote and expand the same ideological priorities driving Project 2025 at home. Longstanding diplomatic pillars, such as democracy promotion, human rights advocacy, and humanitarian aid are being sidelined in favor of building a global coalition opposed to abortion rights, LGBTQ+ equality, gender equality initiatives, and religious freedom among others.Through diplomacy, funding decisions, and international agreements, the United States is increasingly aligning with governments that share an interest in rolling back these rights worldwide.
- The Shutdown of USAID Is Reshaping Global Health and Development
One of the most consequential moves tied to the Project 2025 agenda is the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), who was essential for U.S. humanitarian aid and development policy. For decades, USAID funded programs combating HIV/AIDS, malaria, food insecurity, and maternal mortality across the world. Its dismantling has disrupted health systems and humanitarian assistance in dozens of countries, particularly across Africa, where many public health programs relied heavily on U.S. funding. The removing of this infrastructure weakens global health efforts and replaces humanitarian priorities with ideological conditions tied to reproductive rights, gender policy, and conservative values.
- The Geneva Consensus Declaration Is the Engine of the Global Rollback of Rights
The Geneva Consensus Declaration (GCD) has become a central vehicle for exporting the Project 2025 agenda abroad. Revived after the United States rejoined it in 2025, the declaration rejects abortion as an international human right and promotes a narrow definition of family limited to heterosexual marriage. Now backed by 40 countries—including governments with documented human rights abuses—the coalition is working to challenge established international human rights norms and replace them with a framework centered on “traditional family values.”
- In Africa, Project 2025 Aligned Networks Are Targeting Health Data and Digital Rights
Across parts of Africa, governments aligned with the Project 2025 network are adopting policies that reshape public health systems and digital governance. Programs tied to the Geneva Consensus coalition and initiatives such as Protego have pushed to remove references to gender, reproductive health, and LGBTQ+ communities from public health programs and international aid frameworks. At the same time, restrictions on online speech and digital organizing around gender equality and LGBTQ+ rights are expanding. These policies weaken health programs and erase vulnerable communities from official data and services, making it harder to protect their rights, and deliver lifesaving care.
- The Agenda Is Already Reshaping Laws in Multiple Countries
Project 2025 aligned networks are influencing policy across several regions. In El Salvador, organizations linked to the initiative defended the country’s total abortion ban, despite international findings that the government violated women’s rights. Across Africa, governments such as Uganda and Burundi have partnered with advocacy groups tied to the network while advancing abstinence-only education dangerous anti-LGBTQ+ legislation. Uganda’s law includes the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality” in certain cases. In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government has promoted “traditional family values” policies dismantling LGBTQ+ rights while hosting international conferences that connect many of the same anti-rights organizations behind Project 2025.
- A Global Network Is Driving the Agenda
A powerful network of organizations, such as Alliance Defending Freedom, the Institute for Women’s Health, Family Watch International, and the American Center for Law and Justice, is echoing Project 2025’s agenda across multiple continents through campaigning and litigation. Also, far-right figures like Valerie Huber of the Institute for Women’s Health and Sharon Slater of Family Watch International are expanding the Geneva Consensus network across Europe, Africa, and Latin America.
- Allies Are Transformed into Enemies
Perhaps one of the most astounding aspects of the Project 2025’s export is the U.S. assault on European countries and the European union, which are now seen as enemies of free speech and the far-right movement’s agenda. Sustained attacks on the European Union as “weak” and “woke” and the assertion by the administration that it will intervene in domestic European politics in favor of far-right political parties have fundamentally transformed the American relationship with those who were once its closest allies.
- A Growing Resistance Is Challenging Project 2025
There is room for hope. Civil society organizations, journalists, legal advocates, and human rights groups are expanding their pushback against the policies and networks driving Project 2025. Lawsuits challenging executive orders, investigative reporting exposing the actors behind the agenda, and grassroots mobilization across multiple countries are confronting these initiatives. From legal battles in U.S. courts to international human rights campaigns, a growing movement is mobilizing to defend democratic protections and fundamental rights.
