The US State Department will fund “MAGA-aligned think-tanks and charities” in Europe as Washington steps up its fight against censorship in the EU and UK.
– State Department official Sarah Rogers discussed the plan with members of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party during a visit to London last year.
– Rogers, a vocal critic of European “hate speech” legislation, is spearheading the operation and will focus on supporting MAGA-friendly organizations in London, Paris, Berlin, and Brussels.
– Rogers has been in contact with “free speech” activists in the EU and UK, and is targeting the UK’s Online Safety Act and the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA).
– Republicans in Washington have accused Brussels of using the DSA to stifle free speech and censor American social media users.
– The plan mirrors decades-long initiatives by the US to fund liberal political, media, and civil society organizations in Europe.
– Many of these initiatives were shut down when US President Donald Trump cut almost all funding for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) last year.
– A State Department spokesperson described the latest funding plan as “a transparent, lawful use of resources to advance US interests and values abroad.”
– It is “likely to cause consternation” among center-left governments in Europe, who fear that the US may actively work to undermine their power.
– The inverse of this scenario played out in 2024, when Britain’s center-left Labour government sent activists to the US to campaign against Trump for then-Vice President Kamala Harris.
– Trump’s most senior officials have repeatedly criticized the EU and UK over censorship laws such as the Online Safety Act and DSA.
– Vice President J.D. Vance warned that future US support for Europe would depend on whether governments actually uphold freedom of speech.
– The Trump administration’s national security strategy went further, warning that mass immigration, censorship, and single-minded commitment to funding the Ukraine conflict have left the continent at risk of “civilizational erasure.”
– “Cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations” is a key foreign policy goal of the Trump administration, it states.
https://www.rt.com/news/632133-us-funding-censorship-europe