Trump’s aid cuts will lead to a surge of propaganda, say press freedom groups | Global development

Donald Trump’s foreign aid freeze will lead to a decline in the number of independent media outlets across the world, causing a surge in misinformation and playing into the hands of state propagandists, media organisations have warned.

The US president has suspended billions of dollars in projects supported by USAid, including more than $268m (£216m) allocated to support “independent media and the free flow of information”.

A USAid factsheet, accessed by the press freedom campaign group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) before being taken offline, showed that in 2023 the US agency funded training and support for 6,200 journalists, assisted 707 non-state news outlets and supported 279 civil-society organisations dedicated to strengthening independent media in more than 30 countries, including Iran, Afghanistan and Russia.

RSF said Trump’s decision had sowed “chaos and confusion”. Clayton Weimers, executive director of RSF US, said: “Non-profit newsroom and media organisations have already had to cease operations and lay off staff. The most likely scenario is that after the 90-day freeze, they will disappear for ever.”

In Ukraine, where the media had until recently been largely controlled by oligarchs, nine out of 10 outlets rely on subsidies and USAid is the primary donor, according to RSF.

“It’s a very dangerous moment,” said Anna Babinets, chief executive and co-founder of the Kyiv-based investigative platform Slidstvo.Info, which has lost 80% of its funding from groups that formerly received money from USAid. “We are having to think about cutting our frontline reporting and our war-crime reporting – it means that the people of Ukraine, and the world, will know less about what is happening here.”

Trump has made unsubstantiated claims that billions were stolen at USAid to pay for positive media coverage of his opponents in what he calls the “fake news media”. Meanwhile, Elon Musk called USAid a “criminal organisation” and said it had paid media to “publish their propaganda”.

Valerii Garmash, head of Make Sense, which develops independent media in Ukraine and received almost 50% of its funds for its 6262.com.ua website in the city of Slavyansk from USAid, said its projects had started shutting down.

“We are 24km [15 miles] from the frontline and provide spaces for journalists to prepare before they go there – these spaces have now had to close. Without the money, we have to work like volunteers.”

Weimers said a decline in the number of independent news outlets could lead to a surge in misinformation. “Chaos causes a vacuum and when you pull reliable sources of information, that vacuum will be filled will less reliable sources [such as] state propagandists,” he said.

“Just look at those praising this move: it’s leaders in China, Russia, Hungary, El Salvador – countries known for horrible human rights violations, particularly against their press,” he said.

Babinets said that since the funding freezes and cuts had been announced, anonymous Telegram channels and unnamed websites had also sought to discredit media recipients of USAid in Ukraine. “We have seen a lot of fake stories about our organisations – that we are not journalists, that we are just spies. It’s playing into the Russian narrative,” she said.

In neighbouring Belarus, Natalia Belikova, of Press Club Belarus, said 70% of her organisation’s funding came from a mix of US federal sources and that various cuts and freezes to funding had put it on “the brink of existence”.

Belarus has orchestrated widespread persecution campaigns against journalists and forced hundreds of reporters into exile in recent years. Press Club Belarus surveyed 20 of the country’s outlets in early February and found that 60% of budgets came from US funding. “They are at risk of fading away and gradually disappearing,” said Belikova.

Belikova said independent reporting had played a crucial role in keeping Belarusians informed about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “This decision really plays into the hands of authoritarian regimes,” she said.

“If Belarusian independent media stops existing, then people will only be left with the state propaganda. If there is no alternative, it will gradually capture their minds and we may have a very different society in just a few years.”

Experts fear investigative reporting, which can take years to conduct and often requires a large amount of money, will suffer the most from USAid cuts.

The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), which operates globally and has produced in-depth investigations such as the Panama Papers, which scrutinised secretive offshore tax regimes, said 29% of its funding had been frozen and it had had to lay off 20% of its staff.

“The real issue is there simply isn’t enough funding for global investigative journalism in general,” a spokesperson said. “Without investigative journalism, people don’t know what is really going on in the hidden underworld of crime and corruption.”

Drew Sullivan, co-founder and publisher of OCCRP, said other organisations were wary of stepping into the breach. “These disinformation attacks being amplified by Elon Musk against people like us are being seen by legitimate institutions and it’s scaring good people and they’re not acting. You can’t be afraid of bullies or they win.”

In Colombia, Dora Montero Carvajal, president of Consejo de Redacción, an press organisation that works to strengthen investigative journalism in Colombia and Latin America, said many of the most important national and cross-border investigations had been carried out “thanks to the resources provided by USAid”.

“I know that several projects that were about to come out, especially related to research on political issues for the upcoming elections, have been suspended or cancelled,” she said.

Alain Rafael Dueñas Estévez, a photographer from Cuba working in Argentina, has felt the cuts’ impact directly. “Many working in Cuban independent media rely on scholarships and financing, and they have lost their jobs overnight,” he said.

The decision has also disrupted media operations in Africa. The investigative platform DataCameroon told RSF it had had to put several projects on hold, including one focused on journalist safety and another covering the upcoming presidential election in Cameroon.

Rawan Damen, director of Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism, which works across the Middle East and north Africa, said it had lost $400,000 from the USAid freeze.

In Iran, a contributor to Mamlekate, a citizen journalism group, said the funding had been vital for documenting human rights abuses and supporting civil society during the protests in recent years.

“This aid has helped citizen journalists with secure communication tools like VPNs. Cutting it off doesn’t improve efficiency,” they said. “Instead, it weakens critical efforts abroad that support people inside Iran.”

In neighbouring Afghanistan, where there are draconian restrictions on media freedom under the Taliban, independent journalists have contributed reports to Afghan media outlets outside the country.

Shafi Karimi, founder of the Afghan Journalists in Exile Network, said: “Many of my journalist friends inside the country have lost their jobs, and several media outlets are at risk of closing.

“These organisations relied on funding from various US institutions, and without this support, their ability to continue operating remains uncertain.”

Media outlets covering Myanmar, one of the world’s most dangerous places for journalists, rely heavily on donor funding, especially from the US. Many journalists were forced into exile after the military seized power in a coup in 2021, which was met by widespread opposition and an armed uprising. Journalists documenting the conflict and human rights abuses by the military have faced a “terror campaign”.

Toe Zaw Latt, of the Independent Press Council Myanmar, said he believed about 200 journalists would be affected by the funding freeze. They were already paid very little, and barely surviving, he said, adding: “I cannot imagine [how people will manage], without a salary to pay your rent.”

Journalists that he trains, many of whom are young, “want to expose what is going on in Burma [Myanmar]”. Last year, two of his former students, Htet Myat Thu, 28, and Win Htut Oo, 26, were killed by the military junta.

Several organisations approached for comment did not want to speak about how the freeze had affected them, fearful that they could risk long-term funding or come under political fire.

Kiran Nazish, founding director of the Coalition for Women in Journalism, said: “Small independent newsrooms who often face real-life threats by populist leaders and local populations are now feeling anxious, not only with looming closures and halted operation, but also retaliation from the ground.”

European newsroom leaders said the USAid closure would reignite questions about how the EU funds journalism in Europe, with calls for Brussels to come to the rescue of independent publishers.

Peter Erdelyi, a director of Budapest’s Centre for Sustainable Media and a former media executive in the country, said: “The EU should look at flexibilities in their budgets, at funds earmarked further down the line, and make it available now and with less administrative burden attached.”

The aid freeze, Erdelyi added, was “a life-or-death situation” for many publications.