Opinion Under Trump 2.0, American soft power faces the axe

Indeed, between 1953 and 1999, an entity affiliated with the State Department, the United States Information Service (subsequently renamed the United States Information Agency under the Carter Administration) oversaw libraries across the world, sent American artists, musicians, journalists and academics abroad for varying lengths of time to highlight aspects of American culture, society and values. These efforts, which were pursued at a trivial financial outlay, had a disproportionate impact on non-American audiences. Despite the existence of and the occasional abuse of overweening American material power, these endeavours significantly smoothened the rough edges of American foreign policy.

About a decade following the Cold War’s end, a deeply conservative senator from North Carolina, Jesse Helms, who chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, introduced legislation that led to the merger of the USIA into the State Department. Despite this merger (and various budget cuts that ensued), the Public Diplomacy section (as the merged USIA came to be known) has thrived for decades, carrying out the same mission as its predecessor.

Over the past few decades, the Public Diplomacy section has seen its share of vicissitudes. Some administrations have allocated more funds to its functions while others have scaled them back. Today, as President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) wields its battle axe, this entity may well witness its demise. Such a concern is hardly unreasonable.

A vital component of US public diplomacy was the Voice of America (VoA). Despite being a government-funded entity it has some institutional autonomy and sought to report on global political developments without a blatant American bias. Created in 1942 to combat Nazi propaganda it did yeoman service over decades often drawing on the expertise of American scholars to provide expert commentary on world affairs. For reasons that remain unfathomable, the VoA was shuttered last week and is now off the airwaves. If cost savings were a motivation, then the dismantling of this agency would bring few returns as its annual operating budget was less than $300 million.

The VoA is not the only entity focused on public diplomacy and soft power that has faced the wrath of the DOGE. Last week, the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), an entity created under President Ronald Reagan, was all but eliminated in a mostly unseemly fashion with the police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) raiding its premises. Yet again, this organisation had an operating budget of a mere $55 million.

The full-frontal assault on the USIP was not entirely surprising. Hard-line conservatives had long objected to this organisation, arguing that it had a profound ideological bias, and should therefore be dismantled. The fact that it sought to promote conflict resolution, supported scholarship on reducing global conflicts and boosted efforts to promote stable peace was anathema to this segment of the American political spectrum.

The attempt to dispense with the USIP may not be the most egregious assault that the DOGE has launched on a crucial organisation that highlighted American soft power. Last week, another highly regarded institution that had long enjoyed a tradition of bipartisan support, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, also encountered the DOGE’s battering ram.

An organisation created by Congress in 1968 that had long promoted high-quality, policy-oriented scholarship on a range of contemporary political issues may now face an imminent demise. Through its highly competitive fellowship application process, it has attracted both American and foreign scholars. Consequently, it was a vital intellectual and policy hub in the nation’s capital. Once again, the cost savings that may be associated with its closure amount to next to nothing as its annual operating budget is less than $15 million.

This entire gamut of actions, ostensibly intended to shrink feckless government spending, will, without a doubt, have significant adverse consequences for American soft power. All these entities, at very low cost, have long showcased some of the most positive attributes of American society, culture and values. With this budget-cutting frenzy, which has targeted a host of institutions that promoted the power of ideas and values, the Trump administration will end up eviscerating vital sources of American soft power.

The effects of this careless wielding of the budget axe may not become immediately apparent. However, they will, without question, diminish America’s standing in the world as the country becomes more insular, its cultural and intellectual influence wanes, and its ability to serve as an exemplar of ideas falls by the wayside. The toll that these choices will exact on the significance of American soft power is simply immeasurable. The costs that these cuts will impose on American diplomacy will easily outweigh the savings that may accrue to the American taxpayer.

The writer is a Senior Fellow and directs the Huntington Program on US-India Relations at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.