The White House just handed the Chinese Communist Party a megaphone.

The Trump administration is expected to terminate all remaining employees at the Voice of America, one of five international media programs under the U.S. Agency for Global Media. The administration aims to eliminate funding for all five: Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, and Middle East Broadcasting Networks.

In an executive order, the White House said it “will ensure that taxpayers are no longer on the hook for radical propaganda.”

This is a massive moral and strategic misstep. The Voice of America remains a critical tool to disseminate and defend American values worldwide. Dismantling it and weakening the U.S. Agency for Global Media will only smooth the path for American adversaries to diffuse anti-Western media worldwide.

The administration claims it wants to save Americans money. Indeed, USAGM costs nearly $1 billion annually. However, the cost to our national security and global influence will be far greater. If the United States does not fund international media, our adversaries will. They already do.

China has poured billions into propaganda-peddling international media through China Radio International and China Global Television Network.

In Africa, China-sponsored groups train journalists, encourage African media to adopt Chinese editorial standards, and sell digital surveillance systems similar to China’s own Great Firewall, according to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies.

In Iran, state-backed media spreads Islamic propaganda outside of Iran. For example, HispanTV targets South American listeners with its coverage of global news. HispanTV has a history of extreme anti-semitic coverage and glorification of Iranian terrorist groups, according to a report from the Anti Defamation League.

If the White House succeeds and slashes funding to Radio Farda, the Iranian branch of Radio Free Europe, the only coverage of the war in Gaza available to Iranians will come from a government whose leader calls Israel a “cancerous tumor.”

Russia Today, Russia’s state-controlled English media program, thrives in African countries, thanks to backing from StarTimes, a Chinese satellite and media company. Now, Russian-backed misinformation campaigns proliferate across Africa.

Until now, the Voice of America was a bulwark against these forces.

Millions of people worldwide learned about and aspired toward American values through USAGM and its subsidiaries. Millions of people learn the truth about the regimes they live under thanks to USAGM.

Voice of America and its partner entities are not bastions of objective journalism. It’s record is not spotless.  The administration is right that VOA must be subject to intense scrutiny — especially with regard to how it conducts news in China and other countries hostile to America.

Defunding USAGM is not about saving money, it’s about surrendering influence. America must not retreat from the global conversation. It must lead it.

Lucia Orlandi is a writer in Washington