The EU Bailout of Radio Free Europe Is an Affront to US Sovereignty

When President Trump moved to defund Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) in early 2025, critics clutched their pearls as if democracy itself had been unplugged. In truth, he did what any principled leader should do when a taxpayer-funded institution begins to drift from its mandate. RFE/RL, once a proud Cold War bulwark against Soviet disinformation, had become, in Trump’s own words, a platform for "left-wing propaganda." Now, thanks to a lifeline from the European Union, it has also become a transatlantic Frankenstein: an American institution, funded by foreign politicians, operating against American policy. That is not journalism. That is insubordination, subsidized by Brussels.

The outcry from progressive circles ignored a simple fact: RFE/RL was never supposed to be independent of American oversight. The network is a Delaware-incorporated nonprofit, wholly reliant (or that is how it was supposed to be) on US congressional appropriations and answerable to the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM). Its leadership is appointed, directly or indirectly, by the President of the United States. Its mission has always been to serve American foreign policy by promoting freedom and democracy in hostile information environments. It is not, and never has been, an international NGO or a press outlet for hire.

Yet that is precisely what the European Union would like it to become. With Trump pulling the plug on its funding, Brussels rushed to "save" RFE/RL with an infusion of €5.5 million, with Swedish and other European governments pledging millions more. The network's president, Steve Capus, even flew to Brussels to thank EU officials for the "emergency funding" that would keep RFE/RL "afloat." But afloat for whom? The EU’s foreign policy goals? American national interest? Or the ideological comfort of the managerial left?

Some will argue that a free press should be above politics. That would be a fine sentiment if RFE/RL were a private outlet. But it is not. It was born in the crucible of the Cold War, the product of CIA strategy and American willpower. Funded covertly by the CIA from its inception until the 1970s, RFE/RL was never a neutral observer. It was a weapon, a moral and rhetorical one, in the arsenal of Western liberty. When the CIA’s role was revealed and terminated, Congress stepped in to fund it publicly, bringing it under US statutory oversight. The idea that this broadcaster should now answer to Brussels instead of Washington is not just odd, it is offensive.

To see why, one need only examine the editorial trajectory of RFE/RL in recent years. Critics from the Trump administration and conservative observers have long noted that RFE/RL's content increasingly reflects the worldview of the international left. Sympathetic portrayals of the Iran nuclear deal, heavy-handed reporting on racial unrest in the US, soft coverage of European immigration policies, these are not neutral acts of journalism. They are editorial choices, and they reveal an alignment not with American interests, but with elite European consensus. As Elon Musk put it with characteristically blunt precision, RFE/RL sounds like "radical left crazy people talking to themselves."

Is that hyperbole? Perhaps. But the point stands: when a US-funded broadcaster begins to speak more fluently in the language of Davos than that of Washington, taxpayers have every right to object. And President Trump was right to pull the plug.

Of course, the left did not see it that way. They portrayed the defunding as an attack on free speech, a dismantling of Cold War institutions, a gift to Putin. But this is sophistry. No law mandates that every international broadcaster created during the Cold War must persist in perpetuity, immune from oversight or ideological drift. Institutions are not sacred. Missions can be corrupted. And when they are, they must be corrected.

That is precisely what Trump did by defunding RFE/RL. He acted within his constitutional authority, through the USAGM, to withhold grants and demand accountability. Kari Lake, a senior advisor at USAGM, explicitly warned the network that US support would cease unless it ceased disseminating content contrary to US foreign policy. When that warning was ignored, funding was frozen. A federal judge later ordered the release of some funds, but the damage was done. RFE/RL was no longer an American institution in practice, even if it remained one on paper.

Enter the European Union, stage left, waving a bag of cash.

What is especially galling about the EU bailout is not merely the money, but the motive. EU officials have made no secret of the fact that their funding is targeted, they want RFE/RL to continue to focus on projects aligned with EU strategic priorities, particularly in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. This is not philanthropy. It is influence. It is the purchase of editorial weight by a foreign political bloc with its own interests, often at odds with American policy. If China or Russia had offered to fund RFE/RL during a US funding freeze, the outrage would have been immediate and bipartisan. Why should Brussels be treated differently?

There is also the matter of legality. As a US government grantee, RFE/RL is bound by rules that restrict the acceptance of foreign government funds, particularly when those funds might conflict with the network’s mission or introduce divided loyalties. While its status as a nonprofit creates a legal gray zone, the principle is clear: US-funded entities should not accept foreign money without explicit Congressional authorization. To do so risks running afoul of both the spirit and the letter of US appropriations law. It also raises questions under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA): is RFE/RL now, in part, a foreign agent?

President Trump has every constitutional tool to halt this slide. He can appoint leadership at USAGM who will demand RFE/RL reject or return the EU funds. He can issue an executive order barring US grantees from accepting foreign government money. He can, and should, assert that American foreign policy tools must speak with one voice, and that voice must be American.

To accept EU funding is to fracture that voice. To permit a European political bloc to shape an American information tool is to surrender a piece of our sovereignty. RFE/RL may have started as a Cold War relic, but it now stands as a test of whether American institutions serve the American people, or whether they can be auctioned to the highest foreign bidder when Washington grows impatient.

This is not a debate about journalism. It is a debate about jurisdiction.

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