Olivia Enos
In March 2025, the Trump administration issued an executive order aimed at closing the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM).1 This decision affected Radio Free Asia (RFA) and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), both of which are USAGM grantees, and may ultimately lead to their closure. Such a development would be a strategic loss for the United States and the world.
Despite their names, RFA and RFE/RL are so much more than radio. They do provide radio broadcasts to countries with strict information control. But they also offer critical on-the-ground reporting that informs the American public and provides a voice to those persecuted by authoritarian governments in Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East, and the Indo-Pacific. Both serve strategic functions that advance US interests by conveying the truth about the value of freedom and human rights. The information they provide produces goodwill toward the United States in authoritarian countries that seek to sow discord with America and to deceive their populations about the importance of freedom.
Since the executive order went into effect, RFA has been forced to suspend news operations for the first time in its 29 years of existence and laid off nearly all of its staff in hopes of fully reopening once funding is restored.2 The closure of critical services, including the Mandarin, Uyghur, Tibetan, Cantonese, Korean, and Burmese services, has left citizens of authoritarian countries without an information lifeline. Policymakers and civil society actors who once relied on RFA’s groundbreaking reporting, especially through its English-language media, are now without a critical source of information to inform foreign policy decisions.
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