US pressure prompts Lithuania, Canada and EU service to drop support
Thursday 8th October 2026 on 09:00 in
Lithuania
Lithuania, Canada and the European Union’s diplomatic service withdrew support for an international disinformation conference in Vilnius after pressure from the US administration, LRT reported, citing Politico.
The conference, Disinfo2026, is being held on Wednesday and Thursday. Its programme included discussions describing the United States as a foreign information manipulation and interference, or FIMI, actor. Politico reported that the sessions angered the administration of US President Donald Trump.
According to Politico, the US State Department asked American embassies in several European countries and the EU to raise concerns on Washington’s behalf and determine whether participating governments supported classifying the United States as such an actor.
One session, titled “The US as a FIMI threat: recognise, adapt, resist”, featured two American researchers and a former Central Intelligence Agency official. It examined how the United States had become a disinformation threat to Europe. Another session asked lawyers to assess the threat posed by US government entry bans against European figures.
A conference participant told Politico that Canada and Lithuania asked organisers on Monday to remove their ministries’ logos from conference materials. The European External Action Service, the EU’s diplomatic body, followed suit on Tuesday. Archived versions of the conference website show that all three had previously been listed as sponsors.
The State Department said it could not comment on the details of diplomatic conversations, but added that it should not be surprising that countries distanced themselves from a conference after learning that it described the United States as a FIMI threat.
The European External Action Service and Lithuania’s Foreign Ministry said they withdrew because parts of the programme did not reflect their official positions. Neither specified which parts. France remained the conference’s only main sponsor.
LRT said it had asked Lithuania’s Foreign Ministry to clarify which of the conference’s positions did not align with Lithuania’s own, and would update its report when it received a response.