Since at least 2016, foreign interference in American elections and civil society have become central to American political discourse. The issue is taken extremely seriously by the U.S. government, which has levied sanctions and called out foreign adversaries for sowing “discord and chaos” through their propaganda efforts.

But apparently Washington takes a different view when it comes to American propaganda operations in foreign countries. On Monday, the House passed HR 1157, the “Countering the PRC Malign Influence Fund,” by a bipartisan 351-36 majority. This legislation authorizes more than $1.6 billion for the State Department and USAID over the next five years to, among other purposes, subsidize media and civil society sources around the world that counter Chinese “malign influence” globally. That’s a massive spend — about twice, for example, the annual operating expenditure of CNN. If passed into law it would also represent a large increase in federal spending on international influence operations. While it’s hard to total all of the spending on U.S. influence operations across agencies, the main coordinating body for U.S. information efforts, the State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC), has an annual budget of less than $100 million.

There is obviously no issue with the U.S. government presenting its own public view of what China is doing around the world, and doing so as forcefully as needed. But this bill goes beyond that by subsidizing “independent media and civil society” and other information operations in foreign countries. Indeed, this is already routine. The Global Engagement Center, which will likely play a strong role in implementing the bill, spends more than half its budget on such grants, and USAID, which will also play a lead role, makes grants to foreign media and civil society organizations a key part of its efforts. HR 1157 would supercharge these programs.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/house-...eas/ar-AA1qp59U