Washington (AFP) – The United States on Wednesday eliminated a key government agency that tracked foreign disinformation, framing the move as an effort to preserve “free speech.”

The closure of the Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference hub, previously known as the Global Engagement Center (GEC), comes as leading experts monitoring propaganda have been raising the alarm about the risk of disinformation campaigns from US adversaries such as Russia and China.

In December, just weeks ahead of President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the US Congress failed to extend the agency’s funding following years of Republican allegations that it censored conservative views.

In a statement on Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the closure of the unit, saying it was the responsibility of government officials to “preserve and protect the freedom for Americans to exercise their free speech.”

“Under the previous administration, this office, which cost taxpayers more than $50 million per year, spent millions of dollars to actively silence and censor the voices of Americans they were supposed to be serving,” Rubio said. “That ends today.”

The announcement comes at a time when the State Department is expected to propose an unprecedented dismantling of Washington’s diplomatic reach, shuttering programs and embassies worldwide to slash the budget by almost 50 percent, according to US media.

The GEC, established in 2016, had long faced scrutiny from Republican lawmakers, who accused it of censoring and surveilling Americans. Its closing leaves the State Department without a dedicated office for tracking and countering disinformation from US rivals for the first time in over eight years.

The unit has also come under fire from billionaire Trump advisor Elon Musk, who accused the GEC in 2023 of being the “worst offender in US government censorship (and) media manipulation” and called the agency a “threat to our democracy.”

Musk has overseen the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), tasked with radically reducing government spending.

The GEC’s former leaders have pushed back on those views, calling their work crucial to combating foreign propaganda campaigns.

Last June, James Rubin, special envoy and coordinator for the GEC at the time, announced the launch of a multinational group based in Warsaw to counter Russian disinformation on the war in neighboring Ukraine.

The State Department had said that the initiative, known as the Ukraine Communications Group, would bring together partner governments to coordinate messaging, promote accurate reporting of the war and expose Kremlin information manipulation.

In a previous report, the GEC also warned that China was spending billions of dollars globally to spread disinformation and threatening to cause a “sharp contraction” in freedom of speech around the world.