Trump Criticized For Making Cuts To News Outlets

President Donald Trump is facing significant criticism for his administration's decision to implement drastic cuts to U.S. government-funded news outlets, including Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Asia (RFA). 

These cuts were part of a broader initiative, supported by Trump and billionaire Elon Musk, to reduce the size of the federal government. Critics, including U.S. lawmakers and rights advocates, argued that this move severely undermined America's global soft power, particularly at a time when adversaries like China were expanding their influence in the information space.

VOA, established during World War II to counter Nazi propaganda, had grown into a major international broadcaster, reaching audiences in over 40 languages and providing news to regions with limited press freedom. RFA, launched in 1996, served nearly 60 million people weekly across countries like China, Myanmar, and North Korea, often in local languages such as Tibetan and Uyghur. On March 15, 2025, more than 1,300 VOA employees were placed on administrative leave, and funding for RFA and other sister outlets under the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) was terminated, dealing a potentially fatal blow to their operations.

Lawmakers from both parties voiced concerns. Raja Krishnamoorthi, a Democratic member of the House select committee on China, warned that the cuts benefited "adversaries and authoritarians" like China and North Korea, where press freedoms are virtually nonexistent. Republican Representative Young Kim, chair of the House Select Committee on East Asia and Pacific, echoed this sentiment, stating that dismantling these platforms "cedes leverage to the Chinese Communist Party, North Korea, and other regimes," contradicting the principles of freedom foundational to the U.S. Michael McCaul, a former Republican chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, had previously praised RFA for its transparent reporting and efforts to counter Chinese propaganda, highlighting the strategic loss.

The Trump administration justified the cuts as a cost-saving measure to eliminate what it called wasteful spending on "radical propaganda." 

The White House and figures like Kari Lake, a Trump appointee advising USAGM, framed the outlets as inefficient and biased.