UK foreign secretary warns democracy ‘in retreat’ around the world

U.K. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab on Wednesday warned that democracy is “in retreat” across the world.

Raab made the remarks at the Aspen Security Forum in the U.S. as he was outlining Britain’s role in the competitive age, according to a transcript of the speech.

The U.K. official argued that “autocratic regimes” gross domestic product (GDP) is projected to be larger than those of democracies around the globe. 

“Democracy is in retreat. This decade, the combined GDP of autocratic regimes is expect to exceed the combined GDPs of the world’s democracies,” Raab said. “Just take a second to think about what that means. Tyranny is richer than freedom.”

Raab said this was an issue because democracies are less likely to go to war, trigger widespread immigration flows and are “generally” easier to trade with and solve shared problems.

Raab further said the U.K. has a “moral responsibility and indivisible stake in our planet, our global economy, our global ecosystem and the broader conditions of peace and stability that underpin them.”

The speech comes as the U.K. faces criticism for continuing to pursue trade with China and other countries that have negative human rights records, according to The Associated Press.

Raab was specifically under fire after HuffPost UK obtained audio of him telling staff in the U.K.’s Foreign Office not to restrict trade to countries that violate international standards for human rights, AP notes.

“If we restrict it to countries with [European Convention on Human Rights]-level standards of human rights, we’re not going to do many trade deals with the growth markets of the future,” Raab was quoted as saying in HuffPost UK.

The Foreign Office said the recording was edited to distort Raab’s comments, and that he did emphasize the importance of promoting human rights, BBC reports.