President Donald Trump has said he won’t rule out anything when it comes to removing Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro from power. Yet he is missing an important tool from the arsenal: the Voice of America.
Since Trump’s March executive order dismantling the news agency, most of VOA’s 1,300 staff members and contractors have been fired or placed on administrative leave, its website has been frozen and the 83-year-old broadcaster has gone dark for the first time since its founding during World War II.
Before being shuttered, VOA’s weekly Spanish-language audience in Latin America was more than 100 million people, according to an audience survey released in January by the U.S. Agency for Global Media. That’s especially important in Venezuela, where the regime of Nicolás Maduro has closed most independent media outlets and continues to harass journalists. Around eight journalists are in prison. Many more have fled.
Until Trump’s edict, the broadcaster focused on communicating U.S. foreign policy to Venezuelans, including letting audiences hear unfiltered news conferences, briefings and congressional hearings focused on Maduro’s political repression, corruption, economic mismanagement and, yes, Maduro’s drug trafficking ties. VOA reporters reported inside the country on last year’s presidential elections — which Maduro stole. VOA traveled with opposition leader María Corina Machado, who was recently awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and interviewed eyewitnesses to Maduro’s election rigging.
No doubt Maduro celebrated VOA’s shortsighted closure. The vacuum is being filled by outlets the regime and its allies control. In addition to the Russia Today TV network, the Chinese Communist Party uses the Xinhua News Agency and CGTN, Beijing’s global broadcasting network, to peddle anti-American content. On Sunday, for example, CGTN aired a segmentin which man-on-the-street Venezuelans decry Trump.
VOA itself isn’t going to dislodge Maduro from power: American military might absent a land invasion might not even be able to do that. But in a world of propaganda disguised as fact, the VOA had established itself as a trustworthy source of news in Venezuela.
The fired employees are fighting the broadcaster’s closure. Congress can act by restoring VOA funding, so America’s voice can be heard again.
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