Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of Russia’s state broadcaster RT, said it plainly: “We couldn’t shut them down, unfortunately, but America did so itself.” When your adversary’s most senior propagandist calls your policy decision “a holiday,” you have made a strategic error of the first order. A federal judge agreed on March 7, ruling the Trump administration’s dismantling of Voice of America illegal — but the damage extends well beyond what a court ruling can reverse.
VOA Was Doing the One Thing Authoritarian States Fear Most
In FY 2024, USAGM networks — Voice of America and its affiliated broadcasters — reached 427 million people weekly. VOA alone reached 361 million. In Afghanistan, the networks reached 65.7% of adults weekly. In Somalia, 61.9%. In Nicaragua, 59.1%. In Iran, 19% — around 12.2 million people. In Russia, 10.1 million weekly despite all of the Kremlin’s efforts to block it. As AP News reported, these figures represent a record global audience, nearly doubling over the past decade.
The Soviet Union once deployed over 2,500 jamming stations — spending between five and one hundred dollars for every one dollar VOA spent on broadcasting — trying to prevent their populations from hearing it. They failed. The Trump administration achieved in a year what Soviet jamming technology could not: it took VOA off the air.
The mechanism was bureaucratic. Kari Lake, Trump’s choice to lead the U.S. Agency for Global Media, terminated over 1,000 employees, cut the broadcaster from 49 language services to four, and placed most remaining staff on administrative leave. U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth ruled on March 7 that Lake lacked constitutional authority to serve as acting CEO — she had not been Senate-confirmed and had not satisfied the Federal Vacancies Reform Act. Every layoff, every cut, every contract termination is now voided. But as AP News noted, voidable is not the same as reversed: the staff are gone, the infrastructure has atrophied, and the global credibility gap VOA left behind has already been filled.
China Got More Airtime. It Didn’t Have to Do Anything.
VOA’s Mandarin Service generated 180 million YouTube views and 190 million X video views in 2024, with over half its website traffic coming directly from mainland China — an audience that accesses VOA content through circumvention tools provided by the Open Technology Fund. That audience, according to multiple reports tracked by SaveVOA, is now dependent primarily on Beijing-curated information.
CGTN, China’s international state broadcaster, now transmits to over 200 countries. Xinhua News Agency operates more than 220 bureaus worldwide. Both have been actively expanding into the precise markets VOA served — West Africa, Southeast Asia, Central Asia, and Latin America. As the Hindustan Times reported in June 2025, China was already getting more airtime around the world as Voice of America went quiet. By March 2026, VOA’s dismantling had converted a competitive media landscape into an uncontested one in several regions.
Politico’s European bureau documented the reaction bluntly: Moscow and Beijing rejoiced at the looming death of Radio Free Europe and VOA simultaneously. Chinese state media called VOA “a lie factory” and “a dirty rag.” These are not the reactions of entities that consider the outlet irrelevant — these are the reactions of entities that had actively feared it.
The Firewall Was the Point — and Trump Attacked It Anyway
VOA operates under a firewall that prohibits the U.S. government from directing its content. This is not incidental to its function — it is the function. The credibility of VOA’s journalism in authoritarian markets rests entirely on audiences believing the American government cannot control what it says. That is why VOA covered the Civil Rights Movement, Watergate, and U.S. government failures alongside foreign affairs. It built trust by demonstrating it would report facts about America that the American government might prefer to bury.
The Trump administration targeted that firewall first. AP News covered the administration’s attempts to fire VOA director Michael Abramowitz — attempts the courts repeatedly blocked. The push to eliminate an agency explicitly barred from domestic broadcasting, combined with the installation of a political loyalist in an unconfirmed senior role, signals that the real target was not government waste. It was the credibility the firewall creates.
Congress voted to appropriate half a billion dollars more for USAGM in 2026 than Lake had requested — a bipartisan rebuke. The courts have now ruled Lake’s tenure void. But the administration is appealing. Lake called the ruling “bogus” and the judge “an activist.” The fight is not over, and every month VOA remains diminished is a month the competitive information landscape tilts toward Beijing and Moscow.
What This Actually Means
VOA’s dismantling eliminates the most credible U.S.-funded counter-narrative in authoritarian media markets at precisely the moment those markets are most contested. Russia is running the largest information operation in European history regarding Ukraine. China is expanding its global media footprint with the explicit goal of shaping how developing countries understand geopolitics. The U.S. has just vacated the field.
The court ruling is a victory in the sense that a wrong has been formally named. But the 10.1 million Russians who were watching VOA content last year, the 12.2 million Iranians, the two-thirds of Afghan adults who relied on USAGM networks — they are not waiting for an appeal court schedule. The information void does not stay empty. Russia and China know this. They planned for it. And they didn’t even have to spend money to create it.
Sources
AP News | The Moscow Times | Politico Europe | CNN | The Guardian | USAGM (Audience Report 2024) | Hindustan Times | Foreign Policy
Background
What is Voice of America? Voice of America is a U.S. government-funded international news broadcaster established in 1942. It operates under the U.S. Agency for Global Media and is legally required to maintain editorial independence from the U.S. government through a “firewall” provision. It broadcasts in 63 languages to more than 361 million weekly listeners and viewers worldwide. Unlike domestic U.S. media, it is specifically prohibited from broadcasting inside the United States. Its mission is to provide accurate, objective news to audiences living under authoritarian media restrictions.
Who is Kari Lake? Kari Lake is a former Arizona television news anchor and Republican politician who ran unsuccessfully for Governor of Arizona in 2022 and Senator in 2024. President Trump appointed her to lead the U.S. Agency for Global Media in 2025. A federal judge ruled in March 2026 that her tenure as acting CEO was unconstitutional because she had not been confirmed by the Senate and did not meet the requirements of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act.