India emerges as key focus in Trump administration’s new public diplomacy strategy

Washington: India has emerged as part of the Trump administration's evolving public diplomacy strategy as Washington shifts greater attention towards Asia while overhauling the way it communicates with overseas audiences, a senior US official told lawmakers.

Sarah Rogers, President Donald Trump's nominee to lead the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), said Asia would be one of the agency's principal areas of focus as the United States responds to growing information campaigns by China and other authoritarian governments.

"Asia, huge focus," Rogers told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee while outlining her vision for the agency, which oversees Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia and other US-funded international broadcasters.

Explaining her public diplomacy outreach, Rogers said she had concentrated much of her engagement on countries where social media plays a significant role in public discourse.

"I've also tweeted a lot of content about Japan and some about India," she said, adding that these are among the countries "where Twitter is most popular."

Rogers said the agency should increasingly tailor its outreach to modern media consumption habits rather than relying primarily on traditional radio and television broadcasts.

"If confirmed," she said, USAGM would expand into "short-form video, diaspora group chats, podcasts and other timely forms of engagement," while maintaining conventional broadcasting where it remains effective.

She also argued that US international broadcasting should concentrate on countries where access to independent information remains restricted, identifying Asia, the Middle East, Iran, Afghanistan and Cuba among the agency's strategic priorities.

"My first priority will be to stabilise the agency, strengthen its leadership, modernise its operations, and restore research capacity so we can actually measure reach and viewership," Rogers said.

The comments come as the United States places growing emphasis on competing with China not only in trade, technology and defence but also in the information domain.

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