In January 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump is set to impose an almost total 90-day freeze on foreign aidcommandThe The administration accused the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the independent government agency responsible for aid, of wasting funds and that many of its activities were not consistent with the U.S. national interest. The case was subsequently challenged in court, but six weeks after the freeze order, the Secretary of State said he would cut 83% of USAID programs.announcementThe first time, the company was in a position to do so.

There is widespread concern and a global outcry over the immediate and life-threatening impact of the aid freeze on aid programs around the world, including emergency health and food aid.criticismcalled for a "new" approach. Others, however, agree that it is important to review USAID's activities. These people point to problems with USAID from a long-term perspective. For example, an opinion piece in the U.S. media stated that USAID "has served as a tool for regime change maneuvering, election interference, and destabilization of countries around the world," such asclaimIt is also possible to see.

The impact on the news industry was also part of the discussion: in February 2025, Trump said that USAID had funded the U.S. presssuggestionThe USAID was the first to make such a claim. Although this claim was denied by many media outlets as false, USAID has certainly provided the world's press with a large amount ofassistancehave been doing so. However, USAID is not the only government agency that funds foreign media organizations. Other government agencies are also actively involved in the global media environment.

This article takes a brief look at Japanese media coverage of the series of events surrounding USAID 2025 and explores how the U.S. government has funded news organizations around the world and what impact this has had.

USAID relief supplies (Photo:US Department of Agriculture / Flickr [CC BY 2.0])

Japanese Media Coverage of USAID Funds Freeze

The Japanese media showed a certain degree of interest in the Trump administration's actions regarding USAID, and major newspapers published several articles on the subject. The Yomiuri and Mainichi each ran 11 articles on the subject. The Yomiuri and Mainichi each ran eight articles.

Besides addressing the decisions made by the Trump administration and the responses to them, the article focused primarily on the damage done to humanitarian projects around the world. For example, it discussed how the aid freeze will affect projects such as refugee assistance, landmine clearance efforts, and treatment of chronically ill patientsarticleThere was a The Asahi Shimbun translated an emotional New York Times column by Nicholas Kristof, who called the dismantling of USAID a "tragedy for humanity."reprintingThe first time, the company was in a position to do so.

This focus is of course important. The impact of the decision to freeze aid on humanitarian operations has been significant and immediate and negative. But the broader context of what USAID has been working toward and the issues associated with such aid is also important; the article on the freezing and dismantling of USAID funds makes little reference to USAID's political activities or how it has worked to advance the U.S. national interest. There was little mention of how USAID has functioned and the negative aspects of its history.

As for coverage of USAID's activities outside of humanitarian aid, the Mainichi Shimbun'seditorial(March 2, 2025), I could find only this one phrase in a major newspaper: "USAID has also been responsible for the U.S. foreign policy strategy of supporting democratization in developing countries and elsewhere. While relatively neutral support for democracy is certainly part of what USAID has done, its activities since its founding in 1961 have included otherdark side (of nature, etc.)There are also For example, during the Cold War, USAID provided authoritarian regimes friendly to the U.S. government with varioussupportThe company has been conducting the following activities USAID has also worked with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to provide police and security personnel from U.S.-friendly regimes in Latin America withTorture TechniquesHe was teaching.

Graffiti criticizing USAID painted on the wall between Israel and Palestine (Photo:Asim Bharwani / Flickr [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0])

In recent years, the concept of "democracy assistance" has often meant election interference or complicity in regime change efforts to overthrow leaders deemed unfriendly to the United States. For example, in the 2000 Serbian elections, USAID provided a lot of money for political consultants and electoral support for opposition parties, and provided 5,000 spray cans of anti-government graffiti and 2.5 million stickers with anti-government slogans to theI handed them out.Cuba. In Cuba, in 2010, USAID secretly created a social networking platform with the long-term goal of provoking political demonstrations against the government.introductionattempted to do so. On the other hand, USAID assistance assigned to full-fledged democracy assistance or regime overthrow in countries with authoritarian regimes friendly to the United States is hard to find.

USAID and the Press

One of USAID's activities is to provide assistance to foreign news organizations and journalists. The Japanese media reported limited discussion of USAID's ties to news organizations, but the content of the coverage was more of a denial of any connection between the two. Administration officials, including Trump, said that USAID had provided funding to U.S. news organizations such as Politico and the New York Times.claimHowever, the major Japanese newspapers that picked up the story denied such a fact.articlepublished a report on the company's website. He also denied rumors on social networking sites that the BBC in the UK and a number of Japanese news organizations are also funded by thebaseless assertionand "conspiracy theoryThey called it "a good thing. Japanese Newspapers Deny Rumors They Were Funded by USAIDarticleThey are putting out.

Note that the Japanese media denied the claim that their companies are funded by USAID, but did not report the fact that USAID has funded and played a major role in many news organizations around the world. The Mainichi Shimbun has.articlein the "Japan" section of this report, and only stated that USAID "has also provided assistance to independent media in tyrannical countries," but did not provide any further details. The Asahi Shimbun and Yomiuri Shimbun did not mention the existence of USAID's financial assistance to media organizations around the world.

In fact, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) cited USAID'sfact sheet(now removed from the USAID website) states, "In 2023, USAID provided training and funding for 6,200 journalists and supported 707 non-state media organizations." Furthermore, the foreign aid budget allocated by Congress in 2025 included approximately US$270 million in funds to support "independent media and the free flow of information." In response to the U.S. aid freeze, many news organizations around the world that depend on this aid have been forced to cut staff and are "struggling to survive," according toopinionThere are also

Reporting by journalists supported by USAID via InterNews, Indonesia (Photo:USAID / Flickr [CC BY-NC 2.0])

Independent media?

Much of the U.S. assistance to foreign news organizations is distributed through U.S.-based intermediary media organizations. These organizations use funds received from USAID to provide assistance in the form of funding and training to news organizations in other countries. For example,InterNewsis a non-profit media organization that has supported thousands of news organizations and journalists in more than 100 countries. The organization was founded in the 1980s byAt the time of establishmentlargely due to funding from USAID fromdependenceThe project has been Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) is another large intermediary media organization that supports journalism around the world. This one, too, began with funding from USAID and has since grown to operate with an annual budget of more than US$20 million. Itsapproximately halfare provided by USAID and other U.S. government agencies.

Although InterNews and OCCRP rely heavily on USAID and other government funding, the projects they implement and the news organizations they support maintain editorial independence and are not influenced by donors.claimThe company is doing so.

However, these claims do not necessarily mean that USAID has no influence over the activities of the media organizations it supports. For example, in USAID-funded projects, USAID approves senior staff appointments and annual work plansauthoritywith the U.S. government. Even if USAID does not reject personnel or plans, news organizations and intermediary organizations may make plans consistent with the interests of the U.S. government. a representative of a Bosnian news organization that receives USAID assistance funding through the OCCRP saidinterview (i.e. television, newspaper, etc.)In , he said, "If you are receiving funding from the U.S. government, there are topics that you do not pursue. This is because the U.S. government has interests that take precedence over anything else," he said.

The actual extent of direct influence by USAID is unknown, but if the interests of the U.S. government and the intermediary organizations and news organizations are aligned, day-to-day influence may not matter as much. One of the founders of Internews, for example, noted early on that the organization "had begun to organize around getting funding from the government."See through it.The "intersection" between U.S. "political interests" and Internews is being created, he said.

Editor-in-Chief of the Ukrainian press (Ukrainska Pravda), supported by USAID (photo:Casa de America / Flickr [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0])

It is not hard to imagine that USAID is more likely to provide significant funding for projects that use locations and methods that serve the U.S. national interest. For example, OCCRP activities that expose scandals associated with U.S. companies arevery littleThe Ukrainian government has been a major source of funding for the Ukrainian press. On the other hand, USAID has provided significant funding to a number of Ukrainian news organizations.offerhave been made. Some of these funding agreements state specific political objectives. For example, a Ukrainian news organization that produces English-language content for distribution in Western media received funding from USAID through InterNews in 2021 with the stated purpose of "undermining Russian intelligence operations" and "strengthening international support for solidarity with Ukraine. and more.agreementIt seems to have been included in the

When a news organization is heavily dependent on donors, how much of the "news" is really "news"?Independent MediaCan we call it "a"?

Other Impacts

The downsizing of USAID does not mean the end of the U.S. government's ability to disseminate information to the world that is consistent with its own interests. The U.S. government has a number of means to influence the global media environment. For example, the U.S. Global Media Bureau (USAGMUSAGM operates two news organizations, Voice of America (VOA) and the Cuban Broadcasting Secretariat, and funds four others, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, Middle East Broadcasting Network, and the Open Technology Fund. Through them, USAGM provides content to more than 400 million users in 64 languages.offerThe company is doing so.

Although the USAGM claims editorial independence, its editorial policies and statements are strongly aligned with U.S. foreign policyapplyThe company is doing so. The website "assures" that "program decisions reflect the national interests of the United States."Stated.. Yet another document "commits to combat the pernicious influence of the People's Republic of China, Russia, Iran, and other authoritarian regimes and non-state actors."Stated.... The Trump Administration is reconsidering its funding of USAGM and is considering cutting funding and tightening control over this organizationpossibilityThere is a

Voice of America (VOA) Headquarters (Photo:Rhododendrites / Wikimedia Commons[.CC BY 2.0])

While the U.S. military is certainly not a media-related organization, there have long been attempts by the military to influence foreign countries through the media: during the U.S. invasion and occupation of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, the U.S. military hired contractors to create media-related infrastructure, news organizations, and news programs. contractors to provide the population with information that would primarily portray the occupying forces in a positive light.offerThe company was working on a number of projects. Sometimes they collaborated with USAID on such projects. We also paid local news organizations to publish pro-U.S. news articles. Some of these articles were pretended to be written by local civilians, but were actually written by U.S. soldiers.Written by.Some of these were said to be the most important. In addition, the U.S. military has had a lot more than just the press to influence foreign residents and leaders.psychological tacticsThe company has made full use of the

The CIA also has a track record of having news organizations report stories, including disinformation and propaganda, in media outlets around the world. in one such large-scale intelligence operation that came to light in the 1970s, the CIA infiltrated agents in news organizations around the world, or even paid journalists, to report CIA-originated content in newspaper articles and television reports.Flushed.The following is a list of the most common problems with the

In addition, there are organizations that are not officially government agencies but receive funding directly from the U.S. government to support foreign media operations. For example, the National Endowment for Democracy (NEDThe NED is a nonprofit organization, but it has close ties to the U.S. government; the co-founder of the NED said in 1991, "Much of what we do today was done in secret by the CIA 25 years ago."statedabout as much as the NED's name suggests that it is working for "democracy," but as if it is deciding how to support a country based on whether or not it is hostile to the U.S. government rather than on its level of democracy.be seenNED has a long history of complicity in election interference in foreign countries, and its media supportlink (e.g. a part of a larger plan)Like the USAGM, the NED is also concerned about the possibility of funding cuts under the Trump administration.faceThe company is doing so.

Media literacy training by InterNews USAID, Kazakhstan (Photo:USAID Central Asia / Flickr [CC BY-ND 2.0])

summary

At first glance, the sudden freeze and reduction of funding for USAID and other agencies involved in media support may appear to be a measure to cut wasteful spending. However, it can also be seen as consistent with a realignment of power and control within the U.S. government. The Trump administration is attempting to bring the activities of organizations such as USAID, which had some autonomy from the administration at the time, more directly under the administration's control, according to thepointing outThere are also

From the outset, this foreign aid and support to news organizations around the world has not been provided simply as charity or to promote democracy and press freedom around the world. The Trump administration should be aware that these programs are designed to promote the U.S. national interest, and that these organizations can exert a powerful influence. At this stage, it is unclear how these aid efforts will be reconfigured.

In any case, the power that the U.S. exerts in shaping the global media environment goes beyond the aforementioned media assistance programs. On a more general level, the actions and perspectives of the U.S. are largely reflected in news organizations around the world, as news organizations tend to focus on the people and countries in positions of power. Previously, GNV'sarticlediscussed the mechanism behind this. Moreover, this influence is not only exercised by the U.S. government, but also by major U.S. news organizations. For example, another of GNV'sarticleBut it is clear that international reporting by the New York Times has influenced international reporting by the Japanese press.

Although we have focused on the news media in this report on the series of events surrounding the U.S. foreign aid cuts, it has also provided an opportunity to consider other issues such as international relations and inequality. It is hoped that the Japanese media will take a more critical look at these events in the future and report them in a way that raises questions from a broader perspective.

Writer: Virgil Hawkins

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