The State Department unit established in 2016 is closing after the US Congress failed to extend funding amid Republican criticism.
The US government’s leading foreign intelligence agency has ceased operations, the State Department said, after Congress failed to extend its funding following years of Republican criticism.
The Global Engagement Center (GEC), an arm of the State Department established in 2016, was closed on Monday at a time when officials and propaganda experts were warning of the danger of anti-virus campaigns from US adversaries such as Russia and China.
“The State Department has consulted with Congress about next steps,” the statement said when asked what would happen to GEC employees and its ongoing projects after the shutdown.
GEC had an annual budget of $61m and about 120 employees. Its closure leaves the State Department without a dedicated office to track and counter disinformation from US adversaries for the first time in eight years.
The measure to expand the agency’s funding was removed from the final version of the bipartisan federal spending bill that passed the US Congress last week.
The GEC has long faced scrutiny from Republican lawmakers, who have accused it of spying and surveillance on Americans.
There was also criticism from Elon Musk, who accused the GEC in 2023 of being “the worst case in the US government investigation. [and] manipulating the media” and called the organization a “threat to our democracy.”
GEC leaders have pushed back on those ideas, calling their work essential to combating foreign propaganda campaigns.
Musk was strongly opposed to the original budget bill that would have kept GEC funding, although he did not choose the agency. The billionaire is an adviser to President-elect Donald Trump and has been tipped to run a new program called the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), tasked with cutting government spending, in the incoming Trump administration.
In June, James Rubin, special envoy and coordinator of the GEC, announced the launch of an international group based in Warsaw to counter Russian disinformation about the war in neighboring Ukraine.
The State Department said the program, known as the Ukraine Communications Group, will bring together allied governments to coordinate messages, promote accurate reporting on the war and expose Kremlin information manipulation.
In a report last year, the GEC warned that China was spending billions of dollars around the world to spread disinformation and threatened to cause a “sharp decline” in freedom of expression around the world.
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