The Trump administration has unveiled guidelines for a nearly $5 million program for MAGA-aligned organizations in Europe. Under the banner of defending free speech and human rights, the U.S. State Department plans to fund two or three recipients to promote anti-immigrant narratives, Christian nationalist rhetoric, and the defense of “Western civilizational heritage” across the continent. The beneficiaries have not yet been announced, but German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has already described the initiative as possibly leading to interference in Germany’s elections.
According to the solicitation, published on July 13, the funding scheme seeks “to strengthen and develop democratic resilience, rule of law, freedom of speech and freedom of the press, and the defense of human rights in Europe.” Recipients will be expected to “address national sovereignty, migration, censorship, and lawfare challenges in line with shared political philosophy, law, and our common Western civilizational heritage.”
The grants are intended to reshape the public debate in Europe regarding “EU integration, national sovereignty, migration, and Western identity.” To that end, the Trump administration is proposing to fund research and other activities focused “on the impact of mass migration across Europe, as it relates to concerns about fundamental freedoms, and democratic backsliding.”
The solicitation also refers to the alleged “impact of mass migration on local safety,” aiming to bring “sovereignty and Western heritage” to the European public discourse.
The White House account on X makes a post with Donald Trump and the word “remigration” next to him. December 31, 2025. (Source: X).
This rhetoric is part of a broader ideological agenda that the Trump administration is now seeking to export to Europe, backed by millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars. It echoes Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s authoritarian blueprint now being implemented by the White House, as well as the 2025 National Security Strategy, which warned that Europe faces “civilizational erasure” as a result of migration and EU integration.
By framing migration as a threat to “Western civilizational heritage,” the core narrative of the white supremacist “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory is invoked by the grant. This racist concept falsely claims that white populations are being intentionally replaced by non-white migrants and refugees.
A related concept promoted by the administration is “remigration,” a term used to advocate for the forced expulsion of people on the basis of race, ethnicity, culture, being perceived as “non-white,” or an alleged failure to “assimilate.” This anti-immigrant agenda has been amplified through official Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and State Department channels, with the latter even planning to implement an “Office of Remigration.”
The funding is open to applicants based both in the U.S. and abroad, including civil society and non-governmental organizations, as well as educational institutions and businesses, according to the guidelines made public on July 13. The State Department expects to award two or three grants under this solicitation, each worth approximately $1 million to $3 million.
The Official Leading the Funding Strategy
The official leading this funding strategy friendly to far-right allies in Europe has been Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Sarah B. Rogers. Since taking office, she has repeatedly met with MAGA-aligned organizations across Europe, visiting the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Ireland, Hungary, Poland, and Germany. Once the grants are awarded, it will become clear whether any of the organizations she has engaged with have received U.S. funding to advance an anti-immigrant, anti-rights, and Christian nationalist agenda in Europe.
The Guardian pointed to Britain’s Free Speech Union and, more broadly, to organizations that lost financial support following Viktor Orbán’s defeat in Hungary as European groups that could benefit from the grants. The latter could include the Danube Institute, Mathias Corvinus Collegium, and the Center for Fundamental Rights.
Rogers has also become the public face of the U.S. State Department’s growing hostility toward European liberal democracies. A central target of her rhetoric is the Digital Services Act (DSA), which imposes transparency and accountability requirements on online platforms, including American firms operating in Europe. She has characterized the legislation as a form of censorship and argued that this alleged form of speech restriction, which deplatforms violent online hate speech, is spreading across the continent.
For far-right actors, including the Trump administration and the broader MAGA movement, content moderation, particularly of hate speech, is framed as an assault on free speech and “religious freedom.” This narrative serves to legitimize the demonization of specific communities, especially LGBTQ+ people and migrants.
The State Department attacks the Digital Services Act in a July 2025 post on X. (Source: X).
“Supra-national institutions and governments are using state power to undermine fundamental principles of democratic self-government through overbroad and vague hate-speech laws and online content regulations that police and punish speech while suppressing political participation.”
Those words are not Rogers’s. They are the State Department’s own justification for this nearly $5 million funding program, which could benefit European far-right organizations allied with the Trump administration.
The solicitation continues: “Media regulators have also been weaponized to investigate or sanction outlets publishing dissenting views under the guise of combating ‘misinformation’ or ‘disinformation,’ undermining independent journalism and democratic accountability.”
The funding will not take the form of a hands-off grant. The Trump administration will oversee the “cooperative agreements.” According to the solicitation, the State Department “will be substantially involved” in carrying out parts of the partnerships, including co-developing events and providing guidance.
Intervening on Behalf of Le Pen
The grant targets what the U.S. government describes as “lawfare and judicial activism that undermine democracy and national sovereignty.” One of the program’s stated “illustrative outcomes” is “increased use of tools, such as complaint mechanisms, to counter lawfare and combat free speech violations.”
Marine Le Pen’s conviction provides a concrete example of how Trump officials are already framing this in Europe. In March 2025, the leader of the French far-right Rassemblement National (National Rally, RN) was convicted of embezzling European Parliament funds. In July 2026, an appeals court upheld her conviction and sentenced her to three years in prison, including one year of home detention with electronic monitoring. Le Pen announced she would appeal, a move expected to suspend the sentence and allow her to campaign for the 2027 presidential election without wearing an electronic ankle tag.
The initial conviction sparked international outrage in 2025, particularly among Le Pen’s allies. President Trump said the conviction was “a very big deal” and “sounds very much like this country,” apparently referring to his various prosecutions and erroneous claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him. “Exclusion of people from the political process is particularly concerning given the aggressive and corrupt lawfare waged against President Trump, here in the US,” added Tammy Bruce, a U.S. State Department spokesperson.
The Trump administration did not need its nearly $5 million funding program to exert influence in Le Pen’s case. State Department officials intervened directly. They did so openly and publicly. In May 2025, advisers Samuel Samson and Christopher J. Anderson traveled to France, and met with RN members to discuss support for Le Pen. French magistrate Magali Lafourcade later said that they had also approached her in an attempt to get her to lobby against an election ban imposed on the French politician. Lafourcade, who has no involvement in the Le Pen case, is the secretary-general of France’s National Consultative Commission on Human Rights (CNCDH), an independent body that advises the government.
Ultimately, the solicitation seeks to turn into policy the vision presented by Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the 2026 Munich Security Conference: that the U.S. and Europe “are part of one civilization – Western civilization,” bound by “Christian faith, culture, heritage, language, ancestry, and the sacrifices our forefathers made together for the common civilization.” The nearly $5 million program is designed to translate this Christian nationalist agenda into political influence across Europe, strengthening far-right allies aligned with the Trump administration.
