America’s founding ideals – freedom, opportunity, democracy – frame how we approach the world and are critical to our long-term and short-term successes. The guiding principles, and how we apply them to our engagement, profoundly shape how partners, allies and adversaries, and future leaders perceive the United States.
Our ability to explain and illustrate our shared, values-based goals is a strategic tool. America didn’t attain this “soft power” overnight; it has been hard won, built through painstaking engagement and decades of trust and mutual respect. America earned this power, not because our country has been perfect, but by our commitment to honor these founding ideals and principles.
This values-based power isn’t an end to itself but should be seen as a national security priority simply because it’s effective and efficient to ground our strength among like-minded partners and advocates around the world. Foreign leaders and publics should know the United States is reliable and anchored in values – as opposed to an approach that takes a purely transactional or utilitarian approach to relationships.
It’s in our best interest to protect, preserve, and advance our soft power strength to ensure American leadership, and American values, continue to shape the global environment to protect American interests.
At a time of fierce strategic competition and widespread distrust of institutions, the United States is reducing investments in the very tools that historically built credibility, access, and influence. The U.S. should strategically leverage the frameworks that showcase and amplify our values, to ensure that soft power remains as a capable tool of our foreign policy.
We recommend:
- Stabilize funding for exchange diplomacy. The United States should treat exchange programs, such as the International Visitor Leadership Program and youth programs like YSEALI, the Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative and the Young Africa Leadership Initiative, as components of national security and economic competitiveness, supported by multiyear funding and clear performance metrics that focus on sustained networks and trusted partnerships.
2. Restore confidence in U.S. educational access. While safeguarding national security and protecting our borders, the United States should improve transparency and predictability in student visa processing to reinforce the United States as an open, reliable destination for global talent.
3. Support U.S. international broadcasting. The U.S. government’s reach into isolated communities through targeted outlets like Radio Farda, a Farsi language station designed to reach Iranians, and through platforms like Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia, have ensured that millions have access to trusted sources of information, including information on the United States. The United States should provide funding continuity for critical language services and strengthen and adapt digital distribution while ensuring information remains independent and trustworthy
Recommendation one: Exchanges and IVLP, the long-term influence pipeline
The International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) is the State Department’s flagship professional exchange program, connecting current and emerging foreign leaders with U.S. counterparts across the country through short, targeted visits, while regionally based programs like YALI and YSEALI ensure that young people also have broad exposure to the United States as well as like-minded peers to build future networks.
These initiatives are the gold standard for emerging leaders around the world to gain an understanding of the United States and exposure to the social and economic benefits of a democratic society. Over 500 of the more than 230,000 IVLP program alumni have become heads of state or government, according to the State Department’s statistics. Alumni also include 12 Nobel laureates, more than 1,600 cabinet-level officials, and other leaders assuming roles in government, business, philanthropy and other fields.
Exchanges are long-term investments; participation builds durable professional networks that shape future diplomatic, security and economic cooperation, commercial ties, and political understanding over decades. Without these formal structures, the United States risks losing access to future decision-makers at a time when strategic competitors are investing heavily in similar influence pathways.
Other, lesser-known programs that reach foreign populations in their communities are also vital. They include 700+ American Spaces, which are publicly-accessible places that serve as centers to build and strengthen relationships with host countries, and EducationUSA, the State Department’s network of more than 175 international student advising centers, and English-language learning programs like Access, which spreads the use of the English language to younger populations. Taken together, these engagement programs form a network that introduces U.S. values, showcases U.S. innovation and entrepreneurship, and builds future advocates and partners.
We have watched adversaries move in when Americans move out; the United States cannot cede these critical future networks to those who don’t support our values.
Recommendation two: Declining student enrollment and the erosion of educational outreach
New international student enrollments, including doctorate, master’s, bachelor’s and associate students, fell by 17% for the 2025 to 2026 academic year, as overall international enrollment declined modestly, data from the Institute of International Education show. In survey responses, academic institutions cite visa processing concerns and travel restrictions as the greatest barriers to enrollment. Of course, the United States must control its borders, and students, researchers, exchange visitors, and all travelers must be properly vetted to safeguard our security.
The economic benefits of international students are clear: International students accounted for 6% of the total U.S. higher education population in 2024, contributing nearly $55 billion to the U.S. economy, IIE notes in a November 2025 report. More importantly, U.S. higher education remains one of the most powerful drivers of long‑term affinity toward the United States. Students who study in the United States gain direct exposure to American institutions, civil society, and professional norms, and positively shape future government, business, and research partnerships.
When access becomes unpredictable or difficult, global talent seeks alternatives, profoundly shifting professional networks, research collaboration, and leadership pipelines away from the United States. This realignment weakens U.S. influence in economic, scientific, and diplomatic arenas, and the long-term erosion will be difficult, if not impossible, to rebuild.
Recommendation three: Trusted sources in closed information environments
The U.S. Agency for Global Media oversees Voice of America and supports broadcasters which provide independent news in regions where media freedom is severely constrained. The 2026 fiscal year budget proposal reduced funding for USAGM by more than 80%. The agency also implemented large‑scale staffing reductions, sharply limiting broadcasting capacity in multiple language services. The House recently approved a spending bill providing $643 million for broadcasting for USAGM, which now goes to the Senate.
Access to trusted information is perhaps the most important facet in encouraging civic engagement globally. In highly restricted information environments, credible news sources counter false narratives, including about the United States, and provide citizens with the information they need to make decisions. When U.S. services contract or become unreliable, many audiences around the world cannot simply shift to other, neutral platforms – they are forced to rely on state‑controlled or adversary‑backed outlets, reducing U.S. reach during both periods of crisis and the day-to-day work of civic engagement. Other programs, including the Countering the PRC Malign Influence Fund, which is designed to promote transparency, reduce corruption, support civil society, and counter Chinese economic practices and authoritarian ideology, can play a critical role in ensuring the American ideals and values are represented in key regions around the world.
Strategic competition increasingly plays out in perceptions of legitimacy, respect, and partnership. When cultural engagement is reduced or politicized, the United States forfeits one of its most durable and broadly accepted channels of influence.
Our adversaries aren’t leaving the field. The United States must remain, and reinvest, in the values of engagement that President George W. Bush cited in remarks to the Atlantic Council in 2018: “The only way for peace was through partnership and engagement. If we are together, nothing is impossible. If we are divided, all will fail.”
