The Nordic Times has previously reported on how Trump may completely shut down USAID. This after his efficiency chief, Elon Musk, described it as a “purely criminal organization” and stated that it “is time for it to die”.
The White House has also confirmed that the aid organization has funded LGBTQ propaganda, jihadist terror groups and other subversive activities in a wide range of countries.
A review also shows that USAID has played a central role in the US propaganda war and has funded a very large number of pro-Western media around the world – media that are now threatened with closure if US support is cut.
In Ukraine, for example, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) points out that “9 out of 10 outlets rely on subsidies and USAID is the primary donor”.
– 80% of our budget is affected, laments Anna Babinets, CEO and founder of Slistvo.Info.
“Almost everyone had grants”
According to RSF, USAID funds “independent media” in over 30 countries and has funded “training and support for 6,200 journalists, assisted 707 non-state news outlets, and supported 279 media-sector civil society organizations”.
In 2025 alone, $270 million was budgeted to support “independent media and the free flow of information”.
– The problem is that almost everyone had grants. The question is that for some, these grants amounted to 100% of their income and they could only survive thanks to grants. These grants amounted to 40–60% for some, less for others, explains Oksana Romaniuk of the Ukrainian Institute of Mass Information.
She clarifies that media funding came not only from the US but also from the EU and the UN.
“The puppet masters pulling strings”
The “independent journalism” funded with US aid money is accused by many critics of being a propaganda machine pushing issues and topics deemed important to the political establishment in Washington.
“USAID has pushed nearly half a billion dollars through a secretive US government financed NGO, ‘Internews Network’ (IN), which has ‘worked with’ 4,291 media outlets, producing in one year 4,799 hours of broadcasts reaching up to 778 million people and ‘training’ over 9000 journalists. IN has also supported social media censorship initiatives”, WikiLeaks wrote in a post on X.
Former USAID director Samantha Power has also spoken openly in the past about how the agency funds and influences media reporting in countries like Moldova and Nicaragua.
“USAID set up insurance funds for journalists, which was just a fancy way of saying they were controlling the narrative. Over in Moldova, they pushed for memberships and subscriptions, essentially deciding who gets the cash flow. And in Nicaragua, USAID was restructuring media businesses, which is a nice way of saying USAID was calling the shots on how news gets made and distributed”, notes political commentator Ian Miles Cheong.
“They were the puppet masters, pulling strings to shape the media landscape to their liking”, he concludes.
Orbán: USAID has a strong presence in Hungary
In practice, it remains unclear whether the agency will be closed down completely, reformed or resurrected in a modified form. In many quarters, hopes are now being expressed that in that case it will focus on aid work rather than advocacy.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, among others, has said that the agency funded “basically the entire left-wing media in Hungary under the previous US administration”.
“And they called me ‘disruptor of the year’ … I think the world owes a debt of gratitude to President Donald Trump for uncovering and putting an end to this dark conspiracy”, he wrote.
Not a new phenomenon
It should be noted that attempts by the US establishment to simultaneously control and manipulate media reporting are not a new phenomenon – nor are they limited to USAID alone.
During the Cold War, for example, the CIA launched “Operation Mockingbird”, which aimed to manipulate US and international media to spread pro-American propaganda.
By recruiting journalists and using front organizations, the CIA influenced news reporting, sometimes by planting false stories.
The program was partly uncovered by journalist Carl Bernstein in 1977, who claimed that over 400 journalists collaborated with the CIA in various ways.
