Trump Administration Launches Nearly $5 Million Grant Program to Bankroll Far-Right Parties in Europe

The Trump administration is continuing with its efforts to support far-right parties in other countries—the irony of Trump’s own recent complaints about Chinese election interference aside, of course. The global far right lost a significant funding stream recently with the defeat of Hungary’s Viktor Orban, and the United States appears to be stepping up to the plate, prompting German Chancellor Friedrich Merz to say “I do not want the American government or institutions close to the government to interfere in German elections.”

The Guardian reports:

The German chancellor was responding to a US initiative offering grants of up to $3m (£2.2m) for European charities, thinktanks and individuals.

The funding will be for those seeking to “address national sovereignty, migration, censorship and lawfare challenges in line with shared political philosophy, law and our common western civilizational heritage”.

Former US officials say the grant scheme is part of a months-long effort by the state department to repurpose US government funds to support far-right groups and potentially political parties in Europe. … Previous reporting has suggested that the state department under Trump is interested in funding political parties in Europe, but that it could be hampered by US laws around foreign assistance. On Wednesday, Merz highlighted that it was illegal to finance ‌political parties in Germany from abroad.

The former state department official said: “There seems to be an effort by the state department to put the thumb on the scale of elections in Europe, giving an unfair advantage to rightwing parties with resources that they would ordinarily not get.”

Note: the $3m figure is the cap on any single grant; the State Department’s total funding pool for the program is nearly $5 million, according to its own materials.

It’s hard to keep track of just what the Trump administration thinks of foreign election interference: it seems to be fake news, until it isn’t, as well as unacceptable and bad, unless it’s us doing it to our European allies.

The Executive Watch is a project of the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, and its flagship publication The UnPopulist, to track in an ongoing way the abuses of the power of the American presidency. It sorts these abuses into five categories: Personal Grift, Political Corruption, Presidential Retribution, Power Consolidation, and Policy Illegality. Click the category of interest to get an overview of all the abuses under it.

© The UnPopulist, 2026

Follow us on Bluesky, Threads, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and X.