The Trump administration pressured multiple countries to withdraw their sponsorship of a leading European conference on disinformation, with Canada, Lithuania and the EU’s diplomatic service subsequently agreeing to do so, the Guardian understands. The conference, #Disinfo2026, taking place Wednesday and Thursday, is the annual meetup of Europe’s counter-disinformation community and has drawn hundreds of researchers, journalists, technologists and policymakers to a hotel in Vilnius, Lithuania. It is run by an independent Brussels non-profit, EU Disinfo Lab.
Days before the conference, the logos of its main supporters – the Lithuanian ministry of foreign affairs, the European External Action Service (EEAS) and Global Affairs Canada, the country’s foreign ministry – were wiped off its website. Photos of the event shared with the Guardian also show white stickers affixed over the logos of these organisations printed on official conference materials, appearing to indicate they were struck from the program in haste. Three persons familiar with the matter, including European officials, confirmed that the US state department had been in touch with multiple governments over their support for the conference.
Internal state department documents seen by the Guardian also show US officials thanking Lithuania for “taking US concerns seriously”. The document says Washington was “grateful” Lithuania supposedly found a panel framing the US as a foreign information threat “reprehensible and surprising” and welcomed its decision to limit involvement in the conference. That panel – called “USA as a FIMI threat: adapt, acknowledge, push back”, with the acronym FIMI referring to “foreign information manipulation and interference” – took place Wednesday.
It explored how Europe’s disinformation community could rebuild resilience without Washington, and is the first time the conference appears to have entertained the idea that the US could be a disinformation actor in Europe. Sources and the internal document indicate the state department was explicitly focused on this panel, which included three American speakers, among them a former CIA officer. According to one person familiar with the deliberations, other communications appeared to originate from the office of Sarah B Rogers, the US undersecretary of state for public diplomacy.
Nina Jankowicz, a former US official and disinformation expert who in 2022 briefly headed the Biden administration’s Disinformation Governance Board, which Republicans assailed as a vehicle for policing Americans’ speech, said she understood that Washington had pressured Lithuania and Canada to withdraw from the conference. The Guardian understood from French officials that France was contacted as well. In statements, Lithuania, Canada and the EU said the program of the conference did not align with their official views on the US role in disinformation – although that program had been in place for months before they withdrew their support, since June.
Global Affairs Canada “carefully assesses participation in, and sponsorship of, external events on a case-by-case basis,” GAC spokesperson Samantha Lafleur said. An EU spokesperson confirmed that the European External Action Service had decided to withdraw its support from the conference because “the organisers chose to frame some of the discussions in a way which does not align with the official positions held by the EU.” EU officials, the Guardian understands, did not agree with the characterisation of the US as a disinformation actor. Despite withdrawing its branding as an official supporter, the EU continues to fund the conference.
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