Originally Published in National Review on March 19, 2025
China, North Korea, Russia, and Iran received welcome news over the weekend when the Trump administration issued an executive order for the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) “to be eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law.”
Reforms at the USAGM are necessary, but entirely gutting the agency silences the voices of freedom-loving people around the world that have been oppressed by the Chinese Communist Party, Kim Jong-un, the Kremlin, the ayatollahs, and other repressive regimes dating back to the mid-20th century.
Ending the Agency for Global Media is not the answer. We must restore the USAGM to its intended purpose: a soft-power tool that promotes America’s national security interests.
As the administration works to rein in federal spending, eyeing reform within the USAGM is understandable, as certain agency platforms have strayed away from their core mission of supporting freedom and democracy abroad. For example, why was Voice of America advising staff members to avoid calling Hamas “terrorists” after the October 7 attack on Israel, discussing “white privilege,” or posting biased political views?
This also comes at a time when Americans’ trust in media is at a record low, with a recent Gallup survey revealing that just 31 percent of Americans exhibit “a great deal” or “fair amount” of confidence in our own media’s ability to report the news fairly.
There has long been bipartisan appetite for USAGM reform. In 2013, then–Secretary of State Hillary Clinton noted that the agency’s broadcasting was “practically defunct in terms of its capacity to be able to tell a message around the world.”
We cannot forget the original purpose of these programs: to promote freedom and America’s national security interests. Today’s threats are not confined to land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace. We are in an information war. If the truth is not broadcast around the world, we are losing, and propaganda and disinformation by our adversaries fill the void.
USAGM platforms have uncovered human-rights abuses by authoritarian regimes. For example, Radio Free Asia’s Uyghur Service broke the news that CCP authorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region were persecuting Uyghurs in “reeducation camps.” RFA’s Uyghur Service is the only Uyghur-language news outlet that is independent of the CCP’s influence. RFA also revealed the horrors happening inside North Korean gulags or detention camps.
Radio Free Asia exposed the CCP’s cover-up of Covid-19 deaths at the beginning of the pandemic, was the first Korean-language outlet to report on North Korean soldiers joining Russian forces in Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine, and has covered disinformation campaigns against Taiwan, among other objective coverage.
RFA is a trusted source on the ground in China, Myanmar, North Korea, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos, and the broadcasting agency has experienced historic growth in online engagement, amassing 257 million website views in 2024 — a nearly 20 percent increase from 2023. Meanwhile, its following across all social-media platforms has grown to 38.1 million.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty broadcasts directly to Eastern European countries, including Russia and Ukraine, and has been vital to break through noise, directly reaching civilians during Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Its website warns Russian and Ukrainian readers that the Russian government could impose “fines or imprisonment” for liking or sharing its content.
Voice of America was founded in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda during World War II and is now the largest U.S. international broadcaster, reaching 354 million people a week in nearly 50 languages through 3,500 affiliate stations around the world.
Regimes have not succeeded in cutting off USAGM’s access to areas around the world to advance America’s interests; the United States’ making the first move to do so could have drastic consequences.
Growing up in South Korea in the aftermath of the Korean War, I remember as a young girl seeing U.S. troops drive through my neighborhood throwing Nestlé chocolates out of their trucks. This was my first taste of the freedom the United States embodies. Decades later, I came here legally with my family and ended up working for former House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce on Asian Affairs, including on legislation to make Radio Free Asia permanent.
As a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and as chairwoman of the Subcommittee on East Asia and the Pacific, I will work to protect and strengthen these platforms as we undergo a reauthorization of State Department funding and streamline our federal government to advance our national interests and save taxpayer dollars.
The time is now to revamp the U.S. Agency for Global Media and restore it to its intended purpose. Reform, not elimination, is the right way forward to protect our national security.
