The Trump administration will fund efforts to promote freedom of expression in Western allied countries, Washington said on Monday, during a visit to Europe aimed at countering European regulations that U.S. officials have characterized as censorship.
U.S. officials have been vocal against online rules such as the EU Digital Services Act and the UK Online Safety Act, which Washington says stifle freedom of expression, particularly criticisms of immigration policies, while imposing onerous requirements on American tech companies. Proponents argue that these rules counter hate speech, misinformation, and online false information.
The Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, Sarah Rogers, who has stood out as the main figure in this initiative, will discuss freedom of expression and digital freedom with officials and others on her trip to Dublin, Budapest, Warsaw, and Munich, the State Department said.
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“One way in which my office will operate differently is that we will be very frank and transparent about everything we do,” Rogers said during a panel discussion in Budapest on Monday, emphasizing that her role has the power to direct U.S. funding through grants. “I want to promote freedom of expression in Western allied democracies, and… that is what my grants will do.”
A Financial Times report last week cited knowledgeable sources saying that Rogers had discussed with members of the British opposition Reform a plan to fund think tanks and institutions aligned with President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” policies.
Asked about the report, a State Department spokesman did not confirm the specific funding, but called the plan “a transparent and legal use of resources to promote the interests and values of the United States abroad.”
Forbidden Viewpoints
The government’s National Security Strategy, released in December, stated that European leaders were censoring freedom of expression and suppressing opposition to immigration policies, which, according to it, risked the continent’s “extinction of civilization.”
The United States then issued visa bans against a former European Union commissioner and four anti-disinformation activists who, Washington said, were involved in censoring American social media platforms. European leaders condemned the bans and defended Europe’s right to legislate how foreign companies operate locally.
U.S. officials also engaged with far-right parties in Europe that they consider targets of the online rules, arguing that legitimate opinions against immigration are censored in the name of preventing hate speech.
Rogers, who appeared on Monday alongside an aide to Hungarian nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, said that the Trump administration is not at odds with the majority of people in Europe on issues such as migration, citing surveys in European countries she did not specify.
“The United States government, through me but not only through me, has been aggressively involved in the matter of freedom of expression, because there is no self-government without freedom of expression, you cannot have democratic deliberation if viewpoints are forbidden in the public square,” Rogers said.
