On March 15, the international radio signal of the Voice of America (VoA) stopped broadcasting news, for the most part. As part of President Trump’s cuts to spending, funding was stopped to the VoA, along with their associated broadcasters Radio Free Europe (RFE) and Radio Free Asia (RFA), and newscasts stopped for most of the foreign language broadcasts and was replaced by music.
While international broadcasters in many countries have been either shut down or cut back in recent years, mostly in response to our ample access to information via the internet, the shutdown of the VoA is a huge loss to the world and to the United States international standing.
Founded in 1942 in the middle of World War II, the VoA was started as a way to combat the propaganda sent out by the fascist Axis powers. It also served as a slice of home for U.S. soldiers serving in the war, who could hear news and music from their home country. As the Cold War rose, VoA and RFE began broadcasting into communist countries in Eastern Europe, serving listeners in those countries with a more objective view of the world.
In 1976, President Gerald Ford signed in the VoA Charter, stating that their reporting would be “accurate, objective and comprehensive”. In 1994, the US International Broadcast Act prevented editorial interference by the government. In 2022, the worldwide listenership of the VoA was 326 million people.
In the first world, we take for granted our easy access to information. We can bring out our phones and find any bit of information we like and also double check it against other sources. In less free countries, like Russia, China or North Korea, where access to information is severely restricted or, in some cases, illegal, and the news media of the country is controlled by the government, accurate information is almost impossible to find. Radio doesn’t care about political borders and can broadcast over them with impunity. The technology is also cheap, making radio an easy way to bring true and unbiased reporting to these countries.
This isn’t the first attack on the VoA by Trump. In the summer of 2020, Trump fired the board of directors of the VoA, RFE/Radio Liberty and RFA and ceased many broadcasts into the Middle East. Work visas of many foreign language broadcasters were not renewed. Trump installed his own head to the VoA network and began broadcasting pro-Trump content, including unfounded claims about former president Barack Obama, CIA director John Brennan and then Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. At least six whistleblower reports from the VoA said that the Trump allies were investigating VoA employees about their political affiliations. While the boards were reinstated as part of a summary judgment in October 2020, the plans were laid for 2025.
These tactics are straight out of the fascist playbook. Media control is one of the hallmarks of fascism. Pro-fascist broadcasts and spreading of misinformation against perceived enemies are standard in nationalist movements. For example, The Voice of Korea, the international voice of North Korea, is full of material that venerates Kim Jong Un. Dissenting voices within Korea are silenced with imprisonment or death.
In 2025, Trump ally Kari Lake was put in charge of the VoA. Lake has stated that journalists and her political opponents should be jailed, making her a disturbing choice to oversee a media network. On March 14, under her watch, funding was cut to the VoA and many broadcasts went silent the next day.
As recently shown, the Trump government has little regard for the rule of law, having already defied judicial orders to stop deporting U.S. citizens and immigrants without warrant. It has also removed important aspects of its own history from its documents, such as the contributions of the Navajo codetalkers in defeating Hitler. The loss of the VoA is another way for Trump to control what is being said and understood about the United States.
Trump’s attacks on allied nations, like trade wars with Canada and Mexico, defunding the defence of Ukraine and his cozying up to dictators like Vladimir Putin, have damaged America’s reputation in the world, probably irreparably. The VoA’s loss is another stain on the reputation of the U.S., but it’s much more of a loss for those not in the United States who depend on the VoA and RFE for accurate news, untampered by their own repressive governments.
It’s ironic that one of the most important tools used by the free world during the rise of fascism in Europe in the 1940s has been silenced by modern fascists. More importantly, with Trump giving aid to Russia, sacking the VoA is giving Putin exactly what he wanted, since Putin had called the VoA a “foreign agent” in Russia.
It’s ironic that a voice which once took down fascists has itself been taken down by fascists.
Steve Marlow is the programming coordinator for CFBX “The X” radio, a campus and community radio station broadcasting from Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, British Columbia.