Trump Administration Initiates Mass Layoffs at Voice of America

The Trump administration has started mass layoffs at Voice of America (VOA) and other US-funded media outlets.

The move comes after President Donald Trump signed an executive order targeting VOA’s parent organization, the US Agency for Global Media.

Contractors, who make up a significant portion of VOA’s workforce, received emails notifying them of their termination at the end of March.

They were instructed to “cease all work immediately and are not permitted to access any agency buildings or systems.”

Many contractors are not US citizens and rely on their jobs for visas to stay in the country. Full-time VOA staff have been placed on administrative leave and told not to work.

The White House stated that “taxpayers are no longer on the hook for radical propaganda,” a claim that has been rarely leveled against VOA before. Trump has criticized media coverage of him and questioned the funding of VOA due to its editorial independence.

The cuts come as China and Russia invest heavily in state media to compete with Western narratives. China’s state-run Global Times editorialized that “the monopoly of information held by some traditional Western media is being shattered.”

The editorial added, “As more Americans begin to break through their information cocoons and see a real world and a multidimensional China, the demonizing narratives propagated by VOA will ultimately become a laughingstock of the times.”