US to penalise foreign officials who ‘censor’ US companies, citizens

Trump administration has criticised countries for restrictions on expression, even as it cracks down on dissent at home.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said the US will place new visa restrictions on foreign officials who “censor” American companies and citizens abroad for speech protected in the United States, warning that demanding greater content moderation by US social media companies is “unacceptable”.

“I am announcing a new visa restriction policy that will apply to foreign nationals who are responsible for censorship of protected expression in the United States,” Rubio said in a statement on Wednesday.

The administration of US President Donald Trump has frequently depicted social media content moderation policies as a form of censorship targeting conservatives, and has criticised foreign governments that encourage such policies.

“Even as we take action to reject censorship at home, we see troubling instances of foreign governments and foreign officials picking up the slack,” he said. “In some instances, foreign officials have taken flagrant censorship actions against US tech companies and US citizens and residents when they have no authority to do so.”

Rubio, who has helped spearhead a crackdown on international students who speak out against Israel’s war in Gaza, did not name any foreign officials who the policy would target, but the administration has previously criticised countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany, and Brazil on those grounds.

“Foreigners who work to undermine the rights of Americans should not enjoy the privilege of traveling to our country.  Whether in Latin America, Europe, or elsewhere, the days of passive treatment for those who work to undermine the rights of Americans are over,” Rubio wrote in a post on X.

Claims of anti-conservative censorship have also become a means for the Trump administration to strengthen ties with far-right parties and figures in Europe and around the globe.

The Department of State on Tuesday shared an essay that calls for allies in Europe who embrace a “shared Western civilizational heritage” and states that governments on the continent have “weaponized political institutions against their own citizens”.

“Far from strengthening democratic principles, Europe has devolved into a hotbed of digital censorship, mass migration, restrictions on religious freedom, and numerous other assaults on democratic self-governance,” the essay reads, mirroring statements made by Vice President JD Vance at the Munich Security Conference in February.

Still, criticising curbs on civil liberties and restrictions on speech is not exclusive to the right. Pro-Palestine groups have frequently decried restrictions in Europe and the United States, carried out under the pretext of combating anti-Semitism, but critics say extend to even basic expressions of Palestinian identity.

Rubio’s announcement comes as the administration continues a crackdown on international students involved in pro-Palestine protests at US universities, along with efforts to impose greater control over university curricula that the administration takes issue with.

In recent remarks before the US Congress, Rubio defended the administration’s decision to arrest and detain a Turkish international student named Rumeysa Ozturk for co-signing an op-ed calling for an end to US support for Israel’s war in Gaza. Such actions have sparked strong criticism from civil liberties groups in the US, who say they are an effort to chill dissent.

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Al Jazeera and news agencies