Strengthen defenses against adversaries' disinformation campaigns by preserving USAGM

The elimination of the U.S. Agency for Global Media and its affiliated networks like Voice of America poses a grave threat to America's ability to counter disinformation and propaganda from adversaries like China, Russia, and Iran. These networks have served a vital role in providing reliable, fact-based news and information to audiences living under repressive regimes where state media dominates. Allowing an information vacuum to form in these regions would enable our adversaries to fill the void with their own unchecked lies and narratives. While cost-cutting is prudent, gutting USAGM entirely sacrifices a key soft power asset in the battle against foreign authoritarian influence. The agency's programs cultivate trust over decades and pierce through censorship, undercutting malign actors. USAGM's journalism has exposed corruption, provided frontline war coverage, and countered antisemitic disinformation from China. Losing these capabilities hands our enemies a strategic victory that allows their $7-10 billion annual disinformationbudgets to go unchallenged. America's resolve against information warfare must be strengthened, not dismantled.