Miami (September 16, 2025). – The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) described as an attack on freedom of the press the lawsuit filed Monday by U.S. President Donald Trump against The New York Times and four of its journalists for alleged defamation.
According to press reports, the $15 billion lawsuit was filed in a U.S. District Court in Florida. It cites several articles and a book written by two of the newspaper’s journalists, published in the run-up to the 2024 elections, and characterizes them as “part of a decades-long pattern of intentional and malicious defamation against President Trump” by The New York Times, according to The Associated Press.
Trump accused the newspaper of employing a “method of lying” against him, his family, and his businesses, press reports said. He announced on his social network, Truth Social, that he had filed the lawsuit and referred to The New York Times as “one of the worst and most degenerate newspapers in the History of our Country, becoming a virtual “mouthpiece” for the Radical Left Democrat Party.”
The defendants are The New York Times Company, journalists Susanne Craig, Russ Buettner, Peter Baker, and Michael S. Schmidt, as well as publisher Penguin Random House, which released a book about Trump authored by Craig and Buettner.
According to The New York Times: “This lawsuit has no merit. It lacks any legitimate legal claims and instead is an attempt to stifle and discourage independent reporting. The New York Times will not be deterred by intimidation tactics. We will continue to pursue the facts without fear or favor and stand up for journalists’ First Amendment right to ask questions on behalf of the American people.”
IAPA President José Roberto Dutriz expressed the organization’s solidarity with the newspaper and the journalists sued. “This action does not seek justice, but rather to weaponize the courts as a political tool to intimidate and punish a critical press. It is a direct attack on press freedom. Lawsuits of this nature threaten to chill independent journalism and contravene fundamental principles enshrined in the First Amendment,” said Dutriz, CEO and general manager of La Prensa Gráfica in El Salvador.
Martha Ramos, chair of IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, warned of the chilling effect this lawsuit could have on other media outlets. “The attempt to dismantle a newspaper with an exorbitant figure is a form of disguised censorship that strikes at the very core of democracy. The lawsuit is a threatening message to journalism as a whole: in the face of such abuses of power, the response must be clear—truth and press freedom are not negotiable,” said Ramos, editorial director of Organización Editorial Mexicana (OEM).
The IAPA recalled that U.S. jurisprudence has established a high standard for proving defamation against public figures, precisely to protect the press from attempts to silence it simply for publishing information that is inconvenient to those in power.
Trump had already filed lawsuits against other media outlets, including CBS/Paramount and ABC/Disney, with which he reached multimillion-dollar settlements. He also sued The Wall Street Journal in July, seeking about $10 billion in damages for defamation—a lawsuit that was condemned at the time by the IAPA.
The IAPA’s Declaration of Chapultepec states that intimidation of journalists and restrictions on the circulation of information are practices that “directly oppose press freedom” and “severely curtail it.” Similarly, the Declaration of Salta II warns that disproportionate lawsuits—used to induce self-censorship and jeopardize the sustainability of news outlets—constitute a serious abuse of the judicial system.
Several international reports confirm these concerns. A report by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) denounced that the Trump administration has intensified its hostility toward the press by using authoritarian tactics observed in other regimes around the world. Meanwhile, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) warned in a special report that, during his first 100 days in office, Trump fostered a “climate of fear” and eroded democratic conditions through his war on the press.
The IAPA is a non-profit organization dedicated to defending and promoting freedom of the press and expression in the Americas. It comprises more than 1,300 publications from the western hemisphere and is based in Miami, Florida, United States.