Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has condemned the mass termination of over 500 employees and contractors at Voice of America including those in its Persian service, calling the move a threat to the safety of journalists who may now face deportation.
The Paris-based organization warned that some VOA staffers, particularly those on US work visas, could be forced to return to authoritarian countries where they risk arrest or worse due to their journalism.
The wave of terminations follows an executive order signed by President Donald Trump on March 14 dismantling the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which oversees VOA.
Since April 8, the order has led to sweeping layoffs and programming cuts across USAGM-funded media outlets, causing severe disruptions in news coverage—particularly in regions where VOA is one of the few reliable sources of independent reporting.
“While VOA employees await the decision of the en banc review in the appeals court, Donald Trump and Kari Lake have taken advantage of the slow pace of the proceedings to force through a mass termination, causing irreparable damage before the full appeals panel has had a chance to weigh in,” said Clayton Weimers, RSF’s North America executive director.
“We are deeply concerned that a number of these journalists could be forced to return to authoritarian countries where they would face arrest or worse. We cannot allow that to happen.”
According to RSF, termination notices were issued on May 15, with contracts set to end on either May 23 or May 30. Once their employment ends, it said, affected journalists on visas will have only 30 days to either leave the country or seek alternative options such as asylum or new sponsorship.
RSF and a coalition of VOA staff and unions filed an emergency motion on March 21, arguing the move violated the First Amendment.
A federal judge granted a preliminary injunction on April 22, briefly allowing journalists to resume work. However, on May 3, a court of appeals blocked the return of VOA teams. RSF says it will appeal that decision.
President Trump arrived in Saudi Arabia on May 13 on the first leg of a four-day, three-country trip to the Middle East that included stops in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
The choice of Saudi Arabia for the first state visit of Trump’s second term mirrored that of his first, except this time he did not go to Israel, signaling that the administration is doubling down on its Arabian peninsula partners as key supporters of US regional interests.
Iran was naturally not on the itinerary but ever-present in Trump’s public statements, with the president using a characteristic blend of carrot-and-stick which urged Iranian leaders to take a “new and better path” and warned of “massive maximum pressure” if Tehran “rejects this olive branch.”
Trump expressed his desire to reach a deal with Iran on many occasions, even hinting that a deal was almost agreed. For that to happen, however, Tehran "must stop sponsoring terror, halt its bloody proxy wars, and permanently and verifiably cease its pursuit of nuclear weapons,” he added.
Later, aboard Air Force One, Trump told reporters that Iran had to “make the right decision” about its nuclear program because “something’s going to happen one way or the other” and "we’ll either do it friendly or we’ll do it very unfriendly.”
Arab, Iranian audiences
There are various takeaways for leaders in Iran as well as in its neighboring Arab countries, from Trump’s commentary.
For the latter, Trump’s demand that Iran end its sponsorship of terror and involvement in proxy wars will be welcomed as a signal that any agreement with Tehran might not be narrowly confined to its nuclear program alone, as was the case with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2015.
For leaders in Riyadh, Doha and Abu Dhabi - not to mention in Tel Aviv -it was Iran’s regional activities that were as much a priority as its nuclear program, and their exclusion from the negotiations for the 2015 nuclear deal caused alarm in the region.
However, any such optimism in regional corridors of power may be tempered by concern that the president’s unconventional approach to deal-making may create openings for an agreement that gives Trump the optics he desires at the expense of nuts-and-bolts details on specific Iranian commitments.
Deals, details and differences
Comments by Steve Witkoff, Trump’s chief negotiator and one of his closest confidants, in podcast and other appearances, have not given the impression of a details-focused approach to diplomacy, whether in terms of Russia and Ukraine or Iran.
Witkoff and other members of the Trump administration have also sent mixed messages about whether Iran would be able to enrich uranium in any agreement, reinforcing concerns by domestic and regional critics of US engagement with Iran that a new deal may be worse than no deal.
For the leadership in Tehran, beset by economic challenges, energy shortages and geopolitical setbacks that left its regional "Axis of Resistance" weakened, the optics of Trump’s regional procession offer glimpses of opportunity.
The fact that Trump met with Syria’s new president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, in Riyadh and declared that sanctions on Syria would be lifted was further illustration that Trump is transactional rather than ideological, and willing to take decisions that break the mold of conventional American policy thinking.
This was underscored in Trump’s remarks in Riyadh on May 13 when he slammed the failures of generations of western interventionists and neocons in the Middle East who “told you how to do it, but they had no idea how to do it themselves” and, he argued, did far more damage than good.
In making these comments and receiving al-Sharaa, Trump has shown himself willing to break free of traditional constraints on US policymaking in the region, at least on the surface, and this may yet extend to Iran.
Unclear outlook
There are nevertheless multiple uncertainties for Iranian officials as they begin to digest the outcomes of Trump’s visit to the Middle East and assess the implications, both short- and long-term, for Tehran.
The plethora of major deals signed in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE have cemented these countries’ deep and longstanding ties with the US across the defense and security, economic, and energy spectrum.
Any concerns in the region of US disengagement from the Middle East may be dissipated by the sight of Trump bestowing such significance on the region, in stark contrast to the disdain with which the administration has treated its formal allies in Europe and North America.
And yet, if Trump is to reap the benefits of the hundreds of billions of dollars of planned investments into the US, he will likely return from his trip with a conviction that the pledges, and the returns, require stability and would be jeopardized by any conflict with Iran.
This not only plays into the de-risking and de-escalatory approach that Iran's energy-rich Arab neighbors have taken since 2020 but may also fortify Trump’s desire to burnish his credentials as a peacemaker in the explosive region.
