Headline Roundup • September 9th, 2025
US Informs European Nations It’s Scaling Back Joint Efforts to Counter ‘Disinformation’ - FT
Foreign Policy,Trump Administration,State Department,Disinformation,Europe,European Union,Africa,Eastern Europe,World,Russia,Georgia,Moldova
Summary from the AllSides News Team
The Trump administration has informed European allies that it is pulling back from joint efforts to counter foreign “disinformation” from adversaries like Russia, China, and Iran, according to a new report from Financial Times (Center bias).
The Details: FT cited “three European officials familiar with the matter” as its sources. The State Department informed several European countries last week that it would be terminating memoranda of understanding signed in 2024 under the Biden administration. The memoranda were part of an initiative led by the State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC) and signed by 22 European and African nations.
For Context: The move is the latest in a series of Trump administration reforms aimed at scaling back government-sanctioned media influence abroad. Previously, the State Department had allotted large sums of money for influencing elections and discourse globally, such as $41 million to Georgia or $22 million to Moldova. In early August, Reuters (Center) reported that Secretary of State Marco Rubio instructed American diplomats in Europe to lobby against the EU’s Digital Services Act, which aims to “prevent illegal and harmful activities online and the spread of disinformation.”
How The Media Covered It: The story was not widely covered across the spectrum. AllSides only found coverage from The Kyiv Independent (Center) and Kremlin-funded RT (Lean Right), both of which attributed the reporting to FT. Two days before the report was published, The New York Times (Lean Left) published an analysis of the information landscape in Moldova ahead of its September 28 elections titled, “Russia Steps Up Disinformation Efforts as Trump Abandons Resistance.”
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Featured Coverage of this Story
Since returning to the White House in January, President Trump has dismantled the American government’s efforts to combat foreign disinformation. The problem is that Russia has not stopped spreading it.
How much that matters can now be seen in Moldova, a small but strategic European nation that has since the end of the Cold War looked to Europe and the United States to extract itself from Moscow’s shadow.
Joshua Roberts/Reuters
The US has informed countries in Europe that it is stepping back from joint efforts to combat disinformation from countries such as Russia, China and Iran, according to three European officials familiar with the matter.
European countries received a notice from the State Department last week that the US is terminating memoranda of understanding that were signed last year under the Biden administration, which sought to forge a unified approach to identifying and exposing malicious information spread by foreign governments seeking to sow chaos.
The US has withdrawn from a series of international agreements aimed at countering alleged foreign “disinformation,” effectively ending joint efforts with EU governments to police online content, the Financial Times has reported, citing unnamed European officials.
The US State Department notified participating nations last week that it would terminate memoranda of understanding signed under the Biden administration, according to the report published on Monday. The agreements with 22 countries, mainly in Europe and Africa, were part of a broader initiative led by the now-defunct Global Engagement Center (GEC).
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