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USAGM outlets were rare source of reliable news in

authoritarian

countries

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Rights advocates say move is a blow to US soft power

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Chinese paper, Cambodian leader praise move to dismantle

outlets

By Michael Martina and Shoon Naing

WASHINGTON, March 19 (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers and

rights advocates say the Trump administration's drive to

dismantle U.S. government-funded news outlets, including Voice

of America and Radio Free Asia, is a major blow to Washington's

hard-earned soft power globally at a time when Beijing is

rushing to expand its sphere of influence.

Since its inception to combat Nazi propaganda at the

height of World War Two, Voice of America (VOA) grew to become

an international media broadcaster, operating in more than 40

languages online, on radio and television, spreading U.S. news

narratives into countries lacking a free press.

On Saturday, more than 1,300 Voice of America employees were

placed on leave and funding for its sister news services was

terminated, a likely fatal blow to the outlets. The cuts are

part of an unprecedented push by President Donald Trump and

billionaire Elon Musk to shrink the federal government, which

they say wastes U.S. taxpayer money on causes that do not line

up with U.S. interests.

The move came after Trump ordered the gutting of the U.S.

Agency for Global Media, VOA's parent agency, forcing a

termination of grants to outlets under it. They include Radio

Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which broadcasts across Eastern

Europe, including Russia and Ukraine, as well as Radio Free

Asia, whose coverage extends across Asia, including China and

North Korea.

Rights activists say the multilingual reporters of both VOA

and RFA for decades shone light onto abuses by China and other

authoritarian countries, raising awareness about the plight of

oppressed minorities such as China's Uyghur Muslims.

Trump's domestic critics call it a strategic blunder in

U.S. competition with China, which has poured billions of

dollars into pushing Beijing's narrative around the globe.

"The only people cheering for this are adversaries and

authoritarians around the world, certainly in places like China

and North Korea, where press freedoms are nonexistent," Raja

Krishnamoorthi, the Democratic ranking member of the U.S. House

of Representative's select committee on China, told Reuters.

The move also drew criticism from the Republican chair

of the House Select Committee on East Asia and Pacific, Young

Kim, while Michael McCaul, the Republican former chair of the

House Committee on Foreign Affairs, praised the RFA for

transparent reporting and countering Chinese Communist Party

propaganda.

"Gutting Radio Free Asia and other U.S. Agency for

Global Media platforms counters the principles of freedom our

nation was founded on and cedes leverage to the Chinese

Communist Party, North Korea and other regimes," Kim told China

Watcher, a Politico newsletter.

In an editorial on Monday, China's Global Times tabloid

rejoiced at VOA's closure, calling it a "lie factory."

Cambodia's longtime authoritarian leader Hun Sen, who now

serves as Senate president after his son became prime minister

in 2023, praised Trump's move to dismantle the news outlets,

saying in a Facebook post that they were a "major contribution

to eliminating fake news, disinformation, lies, distortions,

incitement and chaos around the world."

USAGM's website notes that a number of its affiliated

journalists have been jailed in countries where "threats to a

free press persist." Under Hun Sen's government in 2017, two RFA

journalists were arrested and charged with espionage.

A LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS

Journalists and activists in Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia and

Laos who had for decades come to rely on the U.S. outlets for

news in the middle of coups, media blackouts and state

censorship, lamented their demise.

Mon Mon Myat, a Burmese journalist, remembers when she

first heard a Voice of America broadcast during the 2021 coup in

Myanmar, when the government shut down the internet. It "felt

like a light had been switched on" in the darkness, she told

Reuters.

"These programs were created to provide information to

people living under dictatorships. Shutting them down only helps

dictatorship and junta regimes grow," she said.

Chinese democracy activist Gao Yu, who has been jailed in

China, said on X on Sunday that she was "heartbroken" by the

cuts to the U.S. news agencies, noting that Chinese authorities

had previously warned her not to accept VOA or RFA interviews.

"This made me realize that the Chinese Communist authorities

are most afraid of these two American media outlets," she said.

RFA, in particular, had been a thorn in Beijing's side, with

its roster of Uyghur-speaking journalists helping to document

what U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said is the Chinese

government's "genocide" against the Muslim minority group, a

claim Beijing vehemently denies.

In a 2023 report, the State Department said that China has

spent billions of dollars annually on information manipulation

efforts, including by acquiring stakes in foreign media through

"public and non-public means."

That's part of Beijing's effort to expand the global

footprint of its government-controlled media, especially as

geopolitical competition between Beijing and Washington has

intensified.

Rayhan Asat, a Uyghur activist and human rights lawyer

at the Atlantic Council, said RFA's coverage amplified

individual stories to prevent the abuses from becoming mere

statistics.

"Defunding would be devastating to the Uyghur cause and a

gift to their oppressors. When appointing Secretary Rubio,

President Trump highlighted his leadership in combating Uyghur

forced labor. I hope he reverses this decision," she said.

A staunch supporter of the Uyghurs during his time as a U.S.

senator, Rubio last week imposed sanctions on Thai officials

that he said facilitated the deportations of Uyghurs to China.

When asked on Monday whether he supports the move to

dismantle RFA, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce did not

say where the top U.S. diplomat stood on the issue but said the

use of taxpayer money was "serious business."

"Right now, it's new, it's a fluid situation, and we'll have

more for you as it unfolds," Bruce said.