How U.S. freeze on international aid threatens survival of Cuba’s independent journalists
President Donald Trump’s orders to pause foreign aid and dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development is suddenly threatening the survival of a network of Cuban independent news outlets that have been critical in fighting government censorship on the island and bringing human-rights violations to light.
Cubanet, the oldest independent Cuba news outlet created in 1994 and based in Miami, was notified Wednesday that a $1.8 million three-year grant awarded by USAID has been canceled. The contract was set to expire in September, and the disbursement of funds had already been paused since Trump’s executive order on Jan. 20, Cubanet’s director Roberto Hechavarría said.
Before its website was taken down, USAID listed $9,747,553 in ongoing programs focused on Cuba. The funds supported Miami-based news outlets like Cubanet and other initiatives that promoted the free flow of information to Cubans on the island. They also financed groups tracking arbitrary detentions, advocating for religious freedoms, sending humanitarian donations of food and medicines and supporting the families of political prisoners.
That all came to a halt, to the delight of Cuban authorities, which have for years painted civil-society groups and journalists receiving U.S. support as “mercenaries.” In recent X publications, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez has been denouncing USAID as “an instrument to carry out destabilization operations against Cuba.”
The funding suspension clashes with the United States’ long-held support for democracy building, particularly the belief that programs that support the free flow of information in places under authoritarian regimes help citizens see through propaganda, exposes them to democratic values and reveals government abuses, eventually facilitating a transition to democracy.
Cubanet and other media outlets affected by the suspension of foreign aid, such as Diario de Cuba, based in Spain, are now pleading with readers for donations. The two have been recently covering the worsening humanitarian crisis on the island and the deplorable conditions in Cuba’s prisons, among many other censored topics in state media, which the Communist Party controls.
In a video calling for supporting Cuban independent news media, the recently released political prisoner and prominent dissident José Daniel Ferrer praised Cubanet for its years of reporting “everything that is done in favor of freedom, democracy and human rights and disseminating reports of the serious violations of human rights that occur in our country, something that the media under the control of the tyrannical regime does not and will not do.”
Hechavarría said the funds that went to Cubanet were used to counter Cuban state propaganda, and losing that support would be devastating to independent journalists on the island. Journalists inside Cuba produce many of the stories published by Cubanet and other Miami-based media outlets.
“Independent journalists in Cuba are persecuted, repressed, just for doing their job,” he said. “Without the support of organizations like Cubanet, these journalists will not be able to continue doing their work and many will unfortunately be completely exposed to the regime’s repression and will have no choice but to abandon their work or even go into exile.”
Independent journalist Camila Acosta was placed under house arrest for more than 10 months for reporting for Cubanet on the antigovernment protests on July 11, 2021. Journalists with El Toque, another Miami-based independent media, have been harassed or pushed into exile after the outlet infuriated Cuban authorities for independently tracking the dollar exchange rate in the informal market in Cuba.
El Toque has already let go of half of its collaborators because of the foreign-aid freeze, its director, José Jasan Nieves, said.
“This is going to have massive implications,” Nieves said. “The longer this freezing of funds continues, the more difficult it will be for the organizations to sustain themselves, because these are non-profit organizations.”
According to Nieves’ estimates, 14 independent Cuban news outlets depend on foreign aid. He believes they will not disappear entirely but will be forced to scale back their operations.
Several exile organizations, many based in Miami, that promote the restoration of democracy in Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua have also been affected by the aid freeze, prompting broader concerns about U.S. retreat from democracy-promotion efforts.
Orlando Gutierrez, whose organization, the Democratic Directory, has been affected by the aid freeze, said U.S. support is paramount for those working for a democratic transition on the island.
“The aid of the United States to the Cuban resistance in its fight for the freedom of Cuba is as important as the Spanish and French help to the Americans in their fight for independence,” he said.
A broader problem
Though surprising, given the long-term bipartisan support of Cuba democracy programs by Florida’s congressional delegation, the sudden loss of funding by news outlets resulted from broader efforts by the White House and the Department of Government Efficiency to cut government expenditures with a “sledgehammer,” according to some members of Congress.
On his first day in office on Jan. 20, President Trump ordered a 90-day pause on foreign assistance to assess the programs’ “efficiency and consistency with United States foreign policy.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was named USAID acting director, said he had exempted life-saving humanitarian assistance, but democracy-promotion programs do not fall under that category.
Programs that depend on foreign-aid money from the State Department and USAID have been paused. The National Endowment for Democracy, which receives funding not considered foreign assistance directly from Congress, also said this week it could not access the money, was forced to halt all partner support and furloughed most of its staff. The disruption has affected about 2000 organizations around the world, the organization said in a statement.
“NED was created under the Reagan administration, but it always had bipartisan support,” said a source knowledgeable about foreign aid programs who asked not to be named because the person was not authorized to speak publicly about the subject. “This is why it’s taken people so aback, because under previous administrations, it tended to be Republicans who would give more funding for democracy work. I can imagine why everybody overseas is just scratching their heads.”
The source said democracy-promotion programs are also critical to U.S. national security and could help the Trump administration to deliver on its priorities, “helping the rule of law and democratic institutions deliver to their citizens, so that they’re not migrating to the United States.”
The Latin America portfolio is the largest at NED, and the freeze has halted all programming, affecting journalists, civic activists, and human rights defenders. The National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute, both affiliated with NED, have also halted most of their programs.
The International Republican Institute said it disabled its website “to mitigate expenses” but left a reminder of what it does:
“IRI’s mission is to advance freedom and democracy worldwide and stand up against an axis of autocracies – including China, Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Russia – who are working together against American interests. IRI’s work is fundamental to the national security of the United States as an important part of America’s soft-power arsenal.”
Seeking solutions
While some organizations have sued the administration over the aid freeze, others have engaged with members of Congress, the institution that initially approved and allocated the funds, to seek a solution.
Republican U.S. Rep. María Elvira Salazar told the Miami Herald she has “asked the Trump Administration to quickly reinstate Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela programs that align with our national security interests. A free and democratic Latin America means a free and democratic United States of America.”
In an interview with Herald columnist Andres Oppenheimer for CNN en Español, Trump’s special envoy for Latin America, Mauricio Claver-Carone, said the funds will be restored to the most efficient and effective human-rights groups and independent media after a review.
However, the latest administration efforts to dismantle USAID, recall employees overseas, put thousands on leave, and cancel 10,000 awards have increased fears that the aid suspension will become permanent.
“The American aid funding freeze is sowing chaos around the world, including in journalism,” said the organization Reporters Without Borders. “The programs that have been frozen provide vital support to projects that strengthen media, transparency and democracy. President Trump justified this order by charging – without evidence – that a so-called ‘foreign aid industry’ is not aligned with U.S. interests. The tragic irony is that this measure will create a vacuum that plays into the hands of propagandists and authoritarian states.”
Over the years, some U.S.-backed programs promoting a democratic transition on the island have received criticism.
At times echoing the Cuban government’s complaints, U.S. left-leaning activists and some members of Congress have rallied against funds going to regime-change programs and questioned their effectiveness. Some Cuban dissidents on the island have complained that most of the money stays in Miami, paying for traveling and administrative expenses of exile organizations and contractors. Allegations of waste and lack of transparency in allocating some funds have surfaced at times. One USAID contractor, Alan P. Gross, was imprisoned on the island for five years, highlighting the risks faced by those involved in such initiatives.
Still, there is little doubt the aid has been critical to expanding Cuban citizens’ access to free information and for dissident voices to be heard, significantly eroding support for the communist government in recent years. Cuban independent media have provided the type of watchdog journalism that state outlets are forbidden to do, often forcing the government to respond to denunciations first covered in their reporting.
Without the U.S. government support, independent outlets are now calling on the Cuban American community to help them survive.
“I hope there is an awakening within the Cuban-American community,” said Nieves, El Toque’s director, “that people speak out and decide to support these exile organizations, these media in exile, so that we continue to be able to do the effective work we are doing.”
McClatchy Washington, D.C., reporter Shirsho Dasgupta contributed to this story.