“One -sided act of disarmament”
End the USA Cooperation in the fight against disinformation
09.09.2025 – 10:55 a.m.Reading time: 2 min.
Under Joe Biden, the United States and European countries agreed to act together against disinformation from enemy states. The Trump government is now putting a stop.
The US government has informed its European partners about a abrupt end of joint projects to combat disinformation campaigns from countries such as Russia, China and Iran. As the “Financial Times” reported on Monday, citing three European civil servants, the US State Department announced the termination of declarations of intent last week that had been concluded under the Biden government.
These agreements were part of an initiative of the Global Engagement Center (GEC), an Authority of the US State Department, which should be targeted against disinformation from enemy states and terrorist groups abroad. In recent years, the center had focused, among other things, on the systematic spread of manipulative content by Russian state media.
The step follows a number of measures by the Trump government, which has dissolved several institutions to secure the election integrity and to avert foreign influence. The GEC had already been closed in December after Republican MPs blocked an extension of the mandate in the congress. A short -term succession unit in the Foreign Ministry was also stopped again in April.
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James Rubin, head of the GEC until December, described the withdrawal in conversation with the “Financial Times” as a “one -sided act of disarmament” in the information war with Russia and China. “Information warfare is a reality of our time, and artificial intelligence will only multiply the risks,” warned Rubin. He also rejected the accusation that the center had run censorship.
On the other hand, Darren Battie, acting underground secretary for public diplomacy in the Foreign Ministry, clearly defended the decision: “Not only did we stop a single project – we were proud to end the entire GEC.” The work of the center was “deeply incompatible” with the attitude of the Trump government for freedom of expression and also “blamabel ineffective”.
Around 22 countries in Europe and Africa had concluded corresponding agreements with the United States last year, said Rubin. The aim was to create a common understanding of threat and to develop coordinated reactions to state -controlled manipulation campaigns.
The decision to terminate the agreements was first made public by the US medium “The Atlantic”.
