Last monthKari Lake, principal advisor to the American agency for the world media (USAGM), called the agency that she supervises “irreparably broken” and announced that she was emptying her. Lake accused USAGM, responsible For the efforts of American dissemination in favor of freedom and democracy abroad, excessive expenses and self-series, and allegedly alleged that spy and terrorist sympathizers had infiltrated it.
12 days later, however, the Trump administration Saved clever The most important element of the agency: the open technology fund (OTF). In doing so, the administration has reaffirmed that the empowerment of people with open and secure technology is just as critical for the American foreign policy as the messages we disseminate. Now, it is the responsibility of the Congress to follow the example of President Trump and to realign the mandate and the financing of the USAGM to support what works.
Finally, a reason to check your email.
Register for our Free newsletter Today.
Unlike most parts of USAGM, OTF does not produce news content. Instead, he finances and develops tools that help people in repressive diets to access blocked information. These include virtual private networks (VPN), encryption applications encrypted as a signal and technologies resistant to censorship such as TOR. All the projects supported by OTF are open source and available freely for everyone.
In theory, this is in accordance with the rest of the USAGM mission. The media platforms inherited from the agency – including the voice of America (VOA), the radio free Europe / Radio Liberty (RFE / RL) and Radio Free Asia (RFA) – were formerly essential tools in the fight against communism, broadcasting non -censored news and pro -Western messages behind the iron curtain on radio and television.
Today, however, these platforms are expensive and ineffective, because global audiences have changed online. Worse, USAGM diffusers find it difficult to reach the very people as they are supposed to inform. A large part of the agency’s hearing growth now comes from relatively open media environments, where access to Western content is already abundant.
In repressive regimes such as China, Iran and Russia, the impact of the USAGM is increasingly marginal. The scope of RFE / RL in Russia fell after the Kremlin repressed the foreign media – in 2021, the diffuser had to suspend operations In the country for the first time in three decades. China’s “great firewall”, in the meantime, makes it almost impossible for the public to access the RFA reports. Usagm itself classified RFA’s audience size as “not declared” in 2024, because it could not verify who really could access its content in China, Mongolia and North Korea – the most important countries for its mission.
While most USAGM’s efforts are increasingly exceeded, the open technology fund has proven to be effective and efficient to unravel censorship and project pro-democratic messages in hostile territory. In the past three years, the number of people using bypass tools supported by OTF quadrupleFrom 9 million to more than 40 million.
Even the decreasing influence of inherited USAGM programs has become entirely dependent on the OTF. In Iran, 90% of the Public VOA and RFE / RL accesses content via technologies supported by OTF. In Russia, the invasion of Ukraine caused the daily users of Psiphon VPN subject to OTF to point From 48,000 to 1.5 million in a few months.
At only $ 0.07 per user and per month, these internet freedom tools offer a remarkably profitable means of unraveling government censorship. However, despite their impact, OTF receive Only $ 43.5 million per year, or 5% of the USAGM $ 867 million budget.
President Trump’s decisive inversion of OTF’s fate notes that the old ways of carrying out information campaigns are giving way to news. To improve the efficiency and efficiency of the world’s global communication strategy, the Congress should follow the example of the president by triggering a large part of the USAGM budget far from the outdated inherited dissemination and the widening of the scope of the open technology fund.
Ronald Reagan once called for America’s ability to communicate with the world “one of the most powerful weapons of our arsenal”. Today, this power lies in VPNs, encryption and the Internet open.
Photo of Mandel Ngan / AFP via Getty Images
City Journal is a publication of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research (MI), a first group for reflection on the free market. Are you interested in supporting the magazine? As 501 (c) (3) for non-profit, donations in support of Mi and City Journal are fully deductible from tax, as provided for in the law (Ein # 13-2912529).