Trump’s ‘Attacks’ on Media Blamed for US Slide Down Press Freedom Index

(Photo by Kyle Mazza/NurPhoto via AP)

The United States fell seven places in the global press freedom rankings, with the watchdog that independently compiles the list specifically blaming President Donald Trump’s “attacks” against the media and those in it.

Reporters Without Borders’ 2026 World Press Freedom Index, published on Thursday, placed the U.S. at 64th, behind countries such as the UK, Germany and Canada.

“Trump has turned his repeated attacks on the press and journalists into a systematic policy,” the group writes, justifying the slide.

Elsewhere in the analysis, the president actions are claimed to have inspired other countries to crack down, noting that “Presidents Javier Milei [of Argentina] and Nayib Bukele [of El Salvador] – Donald Trump’s most vocal supporters in Latin America – have taken their cue from the White House in their approach to the media, with unsurprisingly similar results.”

The drop comes amid what the organization describes as a worsening global climate for journalism, with press freedom at its lowest point worldwide since the index began 25 years ago.

While noting that journalists around the world continue to be imprisoned or killed for their work, Reporters Without Borders argued that “journalism is being asphyxiated by hostile political discourse towards reporters, weakened by a faltering media economy, and squeezed by laws being used as weapons against the press.”

“More than half of the countries on earth now fall into the ‘difficult’ or ‘very serious’ categories for press freedom,” the report declares in its opening sentence.

According to the organization, the Trump administration shares some of that blame with “drastic cuts to the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) workforce had global repercussions.” The funding cuts, it adds, led to “the closure, suspension and downsizing of international broadcasters such as Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and Radio Free Asia (RFA)” which it notes were “some of the last reliable sources of information” in repressed countries around the world.

Norway retains the top spot for the tenth consecutive year, while much of Europe continues to dominate the upper crust of the rankings.

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