Less than three months ago, US Ambassador to Ireland Edward Walsh attended both days of the inaugural IRL Forum organised by Eddie Hobbs. Hobbs reportedly told the Irish Examiner that there was potential for an “Irish Trump” in the ranks of the Independent Ireland party. The newspaper reported that Walsh’s office had contacted Hobbs to facilitate his attendance at the forum. Walsh sat through two days of panel discussions at the event. The US embassy described his attendance as “routine”.

On Monday, the Guardian reported that the US department of state had directed every US embassy across the world to launch co-ordinated campaigns against foreign propaganda and endorsed Elon Musk’s X as an “innovative” tool to assist the campaigns. This instruction was signed by US secretary of state Marco Rubio.

It urged embassies and consulates to work alongside the US department of war’s psychological operations unit.

Rubio’s cabled instructions asked embassies to pursue five broad goals, including countering hostile messaging, expanding access to information, exposing adversary behaviour, elevating local voices who support US interests, and “telling America’s story”. To this end, embassies were instructed to recruit local influencers, academics and community leaders to carry out counterpropaganda messaging so as to make American-funded narratives feel locally organic rather than centrally directed, according........

© The Irish Times