Washington DC - A pro-democracy research group said Wednesday that freedom in the US has declined to its lowest level since it started assessments a half century ago amid President Donald Trump's authoritarian rule.

The Washington-based Freedom House said that freedom eroded around the world in 2025 for the 20th straight year, in what it called a "grim milestone."

The US remained rated free but fell to 81 points out of 100, its lowest score since the report was launched to cover the year 1972.

The score put it at the same level as South Africa and below a number of European allies as well as South Korea and Panama.

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Freedom House said the US decline was due to "both legislative dysfunction and executive dominance, growing pressure on people's ability to engage in free expression, and efforts by the new administration to undermine anticorruption safeguards."

Trump has aggressively embraced authoritarianism as president, ordering the closure of entire government agencies and deploying armed, masked anti-immigration agents around the country, with the White House promising them impunity.

The US declined by three points, a drop only experienced by one other "free" country, Bulgaria, where 2024 elections were marred by allegations of fraud.

Overall, only 21% of people live in countries rated as "free," with much of the slip in Africa due to military coups, violence against protesters and the weakening of constitutional protections, Freedom House said.

Over the past two decades worldwide, "many more have fallen into the 'not free' category than have democratized or moved up to that free category," said Cathryn Grothe, a senior research analyst at Freedom House who co-authored the report.

"The world is getting less and less free and that middle area is shrinking, and then the free countries are staying relatively stable" despite the US score decline, she said.

The only country to receive a perfect 100 score was Finland, while only South Sudan was rated 0.

Freedom House, founded in 1941 with bipartisan US support, is independently administered but historically has received US government funding.