"Between January and April 2025, the United States government implemented massive and immediate cuts to foreign aid spending. Our new report Targeted explores the global impact of those cuts on freedom of expression and the people working to defend it. The cuts have weakened civil society’s capacity to hold government and corporate interests accountable, to provide access to accurate information, defend a free, open and global internet, protect journalists and human rights defenders, and protect freedom of expression and democracies around the world. Based on quantitative analysis of affected programmes, 64 interviews with civil society representatives from around the world and hundreds of secondary sources, Targeted provides the first in-depth assessment of the scale and consequences of these cuts on free expression worldwide. In total, ARTICLE 19 identified at least 283 free expression-related projects that were cut, the value of which was at least USD 1.7 billion. Prior to the 2025 cuts, the US spent more on foreign aid than any other country. The reductions have had a disastrous, outsized impact across all areas of freedom of expression, in every region of the world: from strengthening civic space in authoritarian and democratically backsliding contexts to protecting journalists and human rights defenders, supporting independent media, defending internet freedom, and addressing the harmful impacts of disinformation. Civil society organisations, especially in countries with limited local resources or where governments actively suppress independent voices, have depended on international support, such as that from the Unied States, to sustain their critical work. Without these resources, the capacity to defend freedom of expression and democracy is severely compromised, worsening the global crisis civil society is working to address." (https://www.article19.org/resources/targeted)