By Dave Sherwood
HAVANA (Reuters) – Cuban state-run media on Wednesday cheered the Trump administration’s decision to gut U.S.-funded media outlets long heralded as a cornerstone of Washington’s effort to promote its viewpoint in communist-run Cuba.
U.S. President Donald Trump issued an order last week to vastly reduce the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), a nearly $1 billion operation that oversees news broadcasts in 50 languages.
Among the news services affected globally, the cuts have shuttered the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, Radio Marti and online platform Noticias Marti, whose mission, according to their website, was to provide “the Cuban people with news and information without censorship.”
Based in Miami, the services broadcast news about Cuba to their predominantly Cuban audience, often providing a counterpoint to that of state-run providers on the island.
Cuban state-run news outlet Cubadebate celebrated the Trump decision, calling the programs “the most expensive, failed, and corrupt communications project in the history of the United States.”
Attempts to contact the Office of Cuba Broadcasting and Radio Marti, which is now off the air, were unsuccessful.
U.S. Representative Maria Elvira Salazar, a Florida Republican and former journalist, said the outlets had been vital for countering Cuban government propaganda.
“As government programs evolve, I will work with President Trump to make sure the Cuban people have the access to the uncensored news they deserve!,” she said on X.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Kari Lake, nominated by Trump to lead USAGM’s Voice of America broadcaster, has described the USAGM as “giant rot and burden to the American taxpayer” and “not salvageable.”
Randy Alonso, editor-in-chief of Cubadebate, used similar terms, describing the USAGM output as “digital sludge.”
“The most rotten of these programs are those directed at Cuba, a nation against which billions of dollars have been spent without being able to overthrow the (Cuban) Revolution,” Alonso wrote on Wednesday.
The decision to cut the programs – and another recent move to slash U.S. financing for other media focused on Cuba – appears to conflict with Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s announcement in January that the Trump administration would “restore a tough U.S.-Cuba policy.”
A State Department official told Reuters the situation was “very complex and fluid.”
“Americans elected the president to reduce the federal bureaucracy, and that involves making very tough decisions,” the official said.
The Office of Cuba Broadcasting had over the years justified its approximately $15 million budget by arguing it provided objective journalism on Cuba.
“As Cubans are subjected to the constant onslaught of (Chinese) and Russian disinformation and propaganda through official Cuban state-run news outlets, OCB has taken the lead in fighting these untruths with fact,” the agency said in its annual budget proposal.
Repeated U.S. government audits, however, have questioned the program’s effectiveness.
A 2019 independent panel of experts found “the well established norms of objectivity in journalism (were) routinely disregarded” by the news outlets, according to a 2020 U.S. Office of the Inspector General report.
“The report also found no consensus among staff about the network’s core mission, with some seeing it as advocacy against the Cuban Government and others as supplying the Cuban people with independent, objective news,” the Inspector General said.
(Reporting by Dave Sherwood in Havana, additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick in Washington; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)
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