Action and Reaction -- the Trump Administration and Public Diplomacy, by Bill Wanlund


Senior VOA correspondent and PDCA member Steve Herman is a leader in the opposition to the Trump Administration’s drive to remake the Voice and other U.S. global broadcasters in the MAGA image. Steve took his case to CBS-TVs 60 Minutes broadcast on March 31; CBS titled the episode, “What Trump's silencing of Voice of America means for listeners.” Comments by VOA White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara, lead plaintiff in one of several suits filed against the broadcasters’ parent agency, the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), also are featured.
 
Steve provided Update a list of actions PDCA members (and others) might take to support the Radios and their presently out-of-work employees. They include:  
In another development, Federal Judge James Paul Oetken March 28 issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) barring the Trump administration from “unilaterally dismantl(ing) VOA by systematically firing employees,” reported The Desk.net, which reports on streaming media, broadcast TV and radio. The TRO prohibits USAGM from “any further attempt to terminate, reduce-in-force, place on leave, or furlough,” and requires USAGM to continue funding VOA while the case proceeds, The Desk.net added.
 
Administration Targets Student Visas
As PDCA Update noted last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that he had revoked the student visas of at least 300 foreign students for “taking activities that are counter …to our national interest, to our foreign policy.” On March 25, Rubio cabled U.S. missions instructing them to “scrutinize the social media content of some applicants for student and other types of visas, in an effort to bar those suspected of criticizing the United States and Israel from entering the country,” The New York Times reported April 1. Several Fulbright scholars studying in the U.S. are among those who have lost their student visas, apparently for running afoul of Trump Administration loyalty standards. Requests to State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs for comment went unanswered. One American educational and training organization, which has worked with the Fulbright Program and asked to remain anonymous, reported no unusual concerns or visa problems among their clientele.
 
Fulbright Program:  long-range forecast remains uncertain
Two recent articles in Times Higher Education (THE), a news and data source for educational matters, spell out the challenges facing the Fulbright Program. On March 27,  an article by THE staff writer Johanna Alonso and headlined, “Fulbrighters in Flux,” discusses the plight of students dealing with frozen funds and furloughed staff in Washington. “Although many 2025–26 Fulbrighters received word that they are awardees, many haven’t received their placements, necessary immigration documents or information about what funding they may receive,” Alonso wrote.
 
In an article published March 31 under the headline “The Fulbright freeze is immoral and self-destructive,” Fulbright veterans Drs. Marisa Lally and Gerardo Blanco wrote that the Program’s objectives are now and always have been closely attuned to U.S. policy; the Administration’s choking off its funding is irrational. “The pause in disbursing funding already allocated to Fulbright by the US Congress is a violation of the new administration’s mandate and of the mission of the State Department to ‘protect and promote US security, prosperity, and democratic values.’ Moreover, removing the ability of US citizens to house and feed themselves abroad constitutes a dereliction of a government’s duties to its people that not even MAGA ideology can justify.”
 
(Dr. Lally, currently a fellow in higher education at George Mason University, participated in the Fulbright Program as an English Teaching Assistant in Colombia in 2017-2018. Dr. Blanco, now associate professor of Higher Education and academic director of the Center for International Higher Education at Boston University, has been a Fulbright Specialist; his teaching, research and consulting has taken place in 15 countries and five continents.)
 
And here’s another thing: The Fulbright Association, an advocacy group, is mounting a donation drive to “Support the future of the Fulbright Program.” Learn about #StandforFulbright here.
 
Former Spy: Covert Action’s Not Enough. It’s Time to Rebuild a Winning Team
 
Paul Kolbe served 25 years as a CIA operations officer. After retiring from the Agency, he became director of the Intelligence Project at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; he’s well aware of the importance of covert activities in advancing American foreign policy. However, experience on the front lines of the Cold War taught him that intelligence collection and covert actions aren’t enough for the U.S. to succeed diplomatically.
 
 “Covert action, used by every administration to quietly advance US objectives, only works in the context of a cohesive national strategy. It cannot succeed in isolation,” he writes, in an essay published April 2 in The Cipher Brief. “Cold War victory came ultimately from a broad-based strategy that combined covert tools with economic, cultural, military, and diplomatic efforts – all reinforcing each other.”
 
When the Cold War ended, however, that cohesion broke down, says Kolbe, and today “we are systematically dismantling those instruments of power while our adversaries expand theirs.” Life-saving foreign aid programs have been dismissed as “expensive waste.” Truth-bearing Voice of America and Radio Liberty broadcasts are under assault. “America’s movies, music, books, and art (were) powerful messengers of American ideals (and) student exchanges and American libraries overseas helped spread democratic values,” he writes. But today, cuts to State Department cultural programs, and Hollywood’s self-censorship of projects which might raise the ire of the Chinese Communist Party, are sad examples of America’s retreat from competition in the realm of ideas.” 
 
American foreign policy should mean “building and using all the tools of American power,” Kolbe concludes. “Let’s not unilaterally disarm, squandering our greatest advantages and leaving ourselves vulnerable and weak in the face of determined adversaries. If America uses the full spectrum of its power, we will truly make America great, not second rate.”