All remaining employees of Voice of America (VOA) will be laid off this week, according to Politico, citing sources within the agency. The layoffs will affect approximately 800 full-time staff members who remained after the Trump administration dismissed nearly 600 contractors earlier in May.
This move is likely to mark the end of one of the oldest international media brands, which for over eight decades served as the “voice” of the United States abroad. VOA was founded in 1942 during World War II to counter Nazi propaganda and disinformation and has since played a key role in U.S. information policy—particularly during the Cold War and the post-Soviet era.
Now, however, the Trump administration is continuing what it calls large-scale reform—but what critics describe as the dismantling—of America’s public diplomacy infrastructure. As previously reported, the VOA headquarters in Washington, D.C. has already been put up for sale, a sign that the agency’s operations, both domestic and international, may be coming to a full stop.
There has been no official comment yet from the White House or the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which oversees Voice of America. However, internal sources within the administration reportedly describe the decision to shutter the broadcasting service as a “done deal.”
