[T]he crisis of soft power risks accelerating the decline of [U.S.] power in the world, activating and speeding up centrifugal dynamics that might otherwise have taken years to fully manifest.
From a European perspective, the U.S. government's reasoning seems rather absurd. ..[o]rganizations like HateAid do not oppose free speech — they protect it.
Trump, grandson of a German immigrant, is particularly peeved at an independent South Africa, which was the worst example of a Western supremacist-cum-colonial mindset.