Newly confirmed Secretary of State Marco Rubio notified US diplomats Tuesday that the State Department will no longer promote programs that “open the door to censorship.”
The departure from the Biden administration’s approach to combatting so-called “disinformation” was one of several planned changes outlined by Rubio, 53, in a cable sent to every US diplomatic and consular post worldwide on his first day in office.
In the cable, according to RealClearPolitics, Rubio slammed the “agencies and programs of our own government” that engaged “in censorship, suppression, and misinformation.”
The former Republican senator from Florida vowed that while the State Department would remain on the lookout for “enemy propaganda,” under his watch, any programs that “lead or in any way open the door to censorship of the American people will be terminated.”
Rubio’s note to his new employees follows President Trump’s Day One executive order barring federal funds from being used for the purpose to “engage in or facilitate any conduct that would unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen.”
Under the Biden administration, the State Department’s controversial and now-shuttered Global Engagement Center (GEC) came under fire from congressional Republicans who charged that the center pressured social media platforms to censor COVID-19 “disinformation” — such as theories that the virus leaked from a laboratory in China — and gave money to a London-based media monitoring nonprofit that would go on to deem 10 outlets, including The Post, purveyors of “disinformation.”
In the final weeks of the 46th presidency, the State Department announced that it had shut down the GEC after congressional lawmakers refused to reauthorize it.
The State Department, however, notified lawmakers that it planned for some GEC employees and funding to be shifted to a different hub aimed at countering “foreign information manipulation and interference” – sparking fears that the GEC was merely being rebranded.
The State Department did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
Rubio’s cable further called on State Department employees to return to “the basics of diplomacy,” arguing that the department erred when it began to emphasize “ideology over common sense,” causing it to “misread the world.”
“[E]very dollar we spend, every program we fund, and every policy we pursue must be justified with the answer to three simple questions,” he wrote, asking whether those actions make the country safer, stronger, and more prosperous.
Rubio added that under the Trump administration, the State Department must cease promoting “mass migration,” and stop reorienting foreign policy “around climate policies that weakened America.”
“Far too much of America’s diplomacy is focused on pushing political and cultural causes that are divisive at home and deeply unpopular abroad,” he wrote. “This creates unnecessary friction with other nations and obstructs our ability to conduct a pragmatic foreign policy and work cooperatively with other nations to advance our core national interests.”
“Our department will take the lead in revitalizing alliances, strengthening ties with other partners and allies, and countering the malign activities of our adversaries. We will refocus American foreign policy on the realities of today’s reemerging great power rivalry,” Rubio continued. “And we will explore and creatively exploit the many new and unexpected opportunities that this changing world affords our nation.”
