Ft: US funds go to European groups aligned with the MAGA movement

The US State Department is offering funding of up to three million dollars to European groups aligned with the MAGA movement that are fighting “censorship” and fostering “bonds of civilisation” between the United States and Europe. This is reported by the Financial Times.

On Monday 13 July, the Department published online calls for grant applications ranging from 1 to 3 million dollars, aimed at European civil society and non-governmental organisations, as well as educational institutions and for-profit groups that intend to “address the challenges relating to national sovereignty, migration, censorship and legal warfare in line with our shared political philosophy, the rule of law and our common heritage of Western civilisation”.

During President Donald Trump’s second term, US officials accused the UK and the EU of stifling freedom of speech by seeking to regulate online hate speech and attempting to neutralise expressions of national sovereignty. According to the newspaper, this funding represents one of the Trump administration’s first steps towards turning its increasingly strident rhetoric against Europe into concrete policies, having previously struggled to produce tangible results.

Earlier this year, the Financial Times reported that the State Department intended to repurpose an existing foreign aid fund to support think tanks and charities aligned with the MAGA movement across Europe.

According to a statement from the State Department, nearly $5 million is available to support the project, which is expected to be distributed amongst two or three beneficiaries. “Supranational institutions and governments are using state power to undermine the fundamental principles of democratic self-government through hate speech laws and overly broad and vague regulations on online content, which control and punish freedom of speech whilst suppressing political participation”, the statement reads.