<
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/07/27/trump-officials-want-to-use-human-rights-aid-to-advocate-for-white-south-africans-and-right-wing-causes-in-europe/>
"For decades, the U.S. Department of State gave money to groups protecting free
speech, human rights and persecuted minorities in poor and authoritarian
countries.
To decide what to fund, staffers with deep expertise typically pored over reams
of information on abuses under the most repressive regimes and held an open
competition to fund groups to work in those countries.
This year, Trump administration officials presented State Department workers
with their own list of organizations that should be funded. To the shock of
many staffers and lawmakers, they proposed at least a dozen grants that would
bypass the normal open bidding process. They also sought to give taxpayer
dollars to groups aligned with conservative and anti-immigration movements in
Europe as well as advocates for white South Africans, according to interviews
and documents reviewed by
ProPublica.
Among the organizations appointees have considered funding in recent months are
a British free-speech organization that has fought against bans on “gay
conversion therapy” and an Afrikaner group run by a controversial figure who
has called for self-governance of the white ethnic minority within South
Africa.
This type of giving would mark a stark departure from the traditional aid that
helped torture victims and documented rapes, political violence and other
abuses in some of the most oppressive countries in the world, according to more
than a dozen former State Department employees. One new program with $4.9
million of competitive funding available to groups to develop “civilizational
self-confidence in Europe” is slated for “research, conferences, cultural
engagements, and support for civil society” in wealthy democracies. The call
for proposals says recipients should “not attempt to reform the legislative
processes,” but experts and lawmakers have expressed concern that the U.S. is
seeking to influence politics in allied countries."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
