President Donald Trump’s decision to pause all US foreign aid has left human rights activists concerned about its impact on Iran-related programs, with some saying the order could help Tehran further restrict its people’s access to information.
Several Iranian human rights organizations, internet freedom programs and activists engaged in media and civil society work have received notices that their funds will be suspended for three months, Iran International has learned.
Trump signed an executive order on January 20, his first day in office, suspending foreign development assistance for 90 days to allow for a review of its efficiency and alignment with his America First policy stance.
Following the move, the State Department has halted most ongoing foreign aid programs and paused the initiation of new assistance, according to an internal memo distributed to officials and US embassies abroad.
Official government figures show Washington is the world's biggest donor of international aid, spending $39 billion in the 2024 fiscal year, out of which $65 million was allocated to funding State Department-administered Near East Regional Democracy (NERD).
The body is the main foreign assistance channel through which the United States has supported civil society and human rights in Iran since 2009, according to the Congressional Research Service.
“We have been told in writing that we must stop all work on the program and not incur any new costs after January 24th and cancel as many obligations as possible,” said one State Department grantee.
“It doesn’t look like anyone has given thought to the implications of this decision... The lack of clarity of the notice we received is just absurd. It is unclear how long this process will take,” the person added.
The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Supporting internet freedom
Among the grantees are Persian media outlets that publish uncensored news for Iranian citizens, as well as human rights organizations that document abuses in Iran, which is instrumental in keeping the Islamic Republic accountable.
A part of the US funds also covers the expenses of Virtual Private Network (VPN) services which ordinary Iranians used to circumvent the Islamic Republic’s censorship. Many of these services will have to stop their operation following the aid cut.
“It is a very dangerous move, because the issue of internet freedom is very vital, both to the people of Iran and the allies of Iranian people in the West,” a cyber security expert based in Silicon Valley told Iran International on condition of anonymity.
Trump’s order, an internet activist told Iran International, deprives 20 million Iranians, or a fifth of the population, of US-supported VPNs they use to bypass Tehran’s internet curbs.
At their peak during the “Woman Life Freedom” protests in 2022, VPN usage in Iran hit two-third of the population. “In today’s Iran, the internet has no meaning without VPNs,” writes internet activist Soroush Ahmadi in an article for Peace Line journal, which is published by the Virginia-based NGO “Human Rights Activists in Iran”.
The VPNs commercially available in the Iranian market are believed to be controlled by the Islamic Republic and even sold by entities affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards who profit from the needs of Iranians to gain unfettered access to the internet.
During Trump’s first term in office in 2020, US government-funded technology companies recorded an increase in the use of circumvention software in Iran after boosting efforts to help Iranian antigovernment protesters thwart internet censorship and use secure mobile messaging.
Since the 2018 protests in Iran, Washington had accelerated efforts to provide Iranians more options on how they communicate with each other and the outside world.
These included providing apps, servers and other technology to help people communicate, visit banned websites, install anti-tracking software and navigate data shutdowns, The Financial Times reported in 2020 citing a Trump administration state department official.
The second Trump administration also seemed to be pursuing the same approach toward the Iranian people before the inauguration.
Maximum pressure on people or government?
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in his Senate confirmation hearing earlier this month that “anything that we do with Iran needs to be clear eyed about who that regime is, but also who those people of Iran really are, because they're not their leaders.”
However, an internet expert told Iran International that the new decision “stands in contrast to the Trump administration’s stated position of supporting the Iranian people against the Islamic republic.”
“In reality, this policy will exert maximum pressure on the Iranian people rather than the government. It will trap Iranian citizens behind a digital wall and assist the government in building its national internet, effectively isolating the nation from the rest of the world,” the expert said.
‘Worst form of punishment’
The Silicon Valley-based cyber security expert says the contradiction between Rubio’s words and the executive order “will raise serious questions in the minds of many Iranians, because this is the worst form of punishment for the people of Iran.”
“With the relentless censorship and oppression by the Islamic Republic, if the current form of support for internet freedom outside Iran disappears, it would in a way be the greatest gift from the Trump administration to the tyrants in Tehran,” the expert added.
“With a stroke of the pen, Trump’s executive order and Rubio’s memo implementing it have done what the Iranian regime could not do after spending billions of dollars on their national Internet: cut off the last channel to the global internet that Iranians had,” said the Iranian internet activist.
The decision not only undermines the free flow of information and access to free internet for Iranian people, it also “disrupts many civil society activities, including secure communication with one another, which strengthens civil society and is essential for safe organization,” according to Ahmad Ahmadian, head of California-based tech non-profit.
“Moreover, it allows the Iranian government to dominate the public narrative by silencing people's voices through cutting off their access to information tools and censored social media in Iran,” added Ahmadian whose company Holistic Resilience aims to advance internet freedom and privacy by developing and researching censorship circumvention.
Big Tech
Last September, the White House convened a meeting with representatives of Amazon, Alphabet's Google, Microsoft, Cloudflare and civil society activists in a bid to encourage US tech giants to offer more digital bandwidth for government-funded internet censorship evasion tools.
The tools, supported by the US-backed Open Technology Fund (OTF), have seen a surge of usage in Iran and other authoritarian states that heavily censor the internet, Reuters reported at the time.
However, Big Tech may not be willing or able to continue their support for providing anti-censorship tools without the US government’s funds.
“The leadership of the US government has been crucial in urging big tech companies to provide public services,” says Ahmadian. “Without the encouragement of the US government, these companies wouldn't take the initiative on their own.”
After the nationwide 2022 protests began in Iran, the Iranian government severely restricted internet access for its citizens.
In response to the restrictions, which included complete and periodic internet shutdowns and slowing down of internet speeds, the US government lifted some curbs on exporting internet services to Iran, allowing Elon Musk’s SpaceX to provide satellite internet services.
By the end of 2024, the number of Starlink satellite internet users in Iran surpassed 100,000, a senior industry official in Iran said earlier this month, underscoring the keenness of Iranians to defy curbs on their access to the outside world.
Impact on human rights projects
However, the consequences of Trump’s executive order will not remain limited to internet censorship circumvention tools, activists say.
The pause in US foreign aid, a human rights activist told Iran International, “(will) impose restrictions on projects that address human rights violations or investigate governmental and military corruption which have impacted Iran's economy and social conditions in favor of foreign terrorist activities and money laundering.”
"This decision by the Trump administration would be a reciprocal gift to the Islamic Republic and its corrupt officials, the Revolutionary Guard, and money-laundering networks in the West," the activist, speaking on condition of anonymity, added.
The activist said several non-Iranian American institutions have been using these funds to investigate corruption and money laundering by the Islamic Republic in environmental and construction sectors. “These organizations will be forced to halt their activities,” he added.
Several activists speaking to Iran International believe that if the projects related to promotion of human rights and internet freedom in Iran do not receive an exemption within the next month, they will either collapse entirely or be deeply curtailed.
“The impact of this freeze might not be immediately noticeable, but its severe implications will become evident over time,” a second human rights activist said.
Internet experts warned that even if US aid starts again in three months, the damage is irreversible since many people had migrated to vulnerable domestic VPNs and might never fully return to using US-backed secure services.
“This issue jeopardizes both the freedom of information and the security of individuals," said the Silicon Valley expert.
