The Trump administration suspended VOA journalists that day and other stations financed by the United States, abruptly freezing media considered for a long time essential to counteract the informative offensive of Russia and China.
Hundreds of reporters and other members of the VOA personnel, Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe and other broadcasters received an email in which they were prohibited from accessing their offices and were asked to deliver their press passes, office telephones and other equipment.
Trump, who has already weakened the United States Agency for International Development and the Department of Education, issued an executive order on Friday that includes the US global media agency among the “elements of the federal bureaucracy that the president has determined that they are unnecessary.”
Kari Lake, a fervent partisan of Trump and news expressing in Arizona, was appointed director of the Media Agency after losing a Senate candidacy. In an email sent to the media that supervises, he said that the funds of federal subsidies “no longer respond to the priorities of the agency.”
A White House press official, Harrison Fields, adopted a much less formal tone when writing in X simply “goodbye” in 20 languages, in apparent reference to VOA multilingual coverage.
The director of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, who began transmitting in the Soviet block during the Cold War, described the cancellation of financing as a “massive gift to the enemies of the United States.”
The media funded by the US government has been reoriented since the end of the Cold War, leaving aside much of its programming aimed at the democratic countries of central and eastern Europe and focusing on Russia and China.
Radio Free Asia, created in 1996, considers that its mission is to inform without censorship in countries where there are no free media, such as China, Burma, North Korea and Vietnam.
“It is not just about losing the salary. We have personnel and contractors who fear for their safety: reporters who work under the radar in Authoritarian countries of Asia or employees in the United States that fear being deported if their visa ceases to be valid,” said a chain worker.
Democratic congressmen Gregory Meeks, the main representative of their party in the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives, and Lois Frankel stated in a joint statement that Trump’s decision “causes lasting damage to the United States efforts to counteract propaganda in the world.”
These media have an editorial barrier and a declared guarantee of independence, despite receiving financing from the US government.
This policy has generated discomfort in some sectors close to Trump, who has repeatedly lashed out against the press. During his first term, he suggested that the media funded by the government should promote their policies.