The Trump administration’s decision to empty an agency that aims to support companies belonging to minorities has alarmed democratic legislators and non -profit organizations, which say that action could affect employment growth and businesses based on the agency’s services.
President Trump signed a executive decree Last month, this will effectively dismantle seven agencies “to the full extent of applicable law”, including the commercial development minority. Installed in the Commerce Department, the agency finances more than three dozen centers across the country which provide technical assistance to companies belonging to minorities in order to help them obtain loans and contracts.
Almost every 70 workers from the agency were placed on administrative leave at the end of last month, and only three employees remain, according to a person familiar with the issue.
Democratic legislators have condemned the actions of the Trump administration. Wisconsin Tammy Baldwin Senator urged the administration Last week, to immediately publish details on its discounts offered for the agency and how they could affect small businesses. In a Letter to trade secretary Howard Lutnick Last week, Washington Maria Cantwell Senators and Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware said that a major reduction in the agency’s workforce would be “to the detriment of the American economy” and would have devastating effects on its ability to “carry out its programs and functions as compulsory by the Congress”.
During the last financial year, the minority business development agency helped companies access more than $ 1.5 billion in capital and create or keep around 23,000 jobs, according to the Agency Annual Report.
Other supporters of the agency have declared that its evisceration could harm companies belonging to minorities which are already faced with additional obstacles to capital due to a lack of capacity, Expertise or a large network, among others.
“His disappearance is disturbing,” said Marc H. Morial, president and chief executive officer of the National Urban League. “These companies now, in order to find these services elsewhere, will have to either pay them or do without it.”
The managers of the White House and Commerce department did not respond to requests for comments.
The creation of the agency dates back to 1969, when President Richard M. Nixon established As an Office of Minority Business Enterprise. The agency, which received $ 70 million in funding Last year, was then made permanent and extended by a Bipartite infrastructure bill that President Joseph R. Biden Jr. reported in 2021.
Its dismantling is part of the aggressive attempt of the Trump administration to eradicate the efforts linked to diversity, equity and inclusion, which the president described as “forging a company which is in Dalton
The minority business development agency was at the center of a case last year which led to a Federal judge in Texas regulates that it must offer its services to people of all breeds and ethnic groups. The presumption of the agency that companies belonging to black, Latinos and other racial minorities have been disadvantaged had violated the Constitution, judged the judge. The decision was made after three owners of white companies continued the agency.
Some tax conservatives have said they had supported the agency closing, although they thought that changes should be approved by legislators.
“The congress should legislate to close the agency,” said Chris Edwards, economist at Libertarian Cato Institute. “Employees must be treated fairly, and perhaps the agency should be deleted over a period of two or three years.”
Edwards said he was thinking that he would be “more appropriate” for governments of states and states instead of the federal government to provide assistance and take deregulative measures to support companies.
Certain recipients of the agency’s subsidies said they were concerned about the way in which the actions of the Trump administration could affect their operations. Lamar Heystek, the president of Asian Inc., a non -profit organization that operates one of the agencies business centers In San Jose, California, said that he expected federal officials trying to cut the organization of the organization. Heystek said the federal funds had helped his organization to help thousands of companies develop business plans, gain funding with banks and landing contracts with the public and private sectors.
If Trump administration officials were trying to disrupt federal funding for the non -profit organization, it should most likely reduce the number of staff members providing technical assistance, which would lead to fewer companies, Heystek said.
“The decree is an reckless aggression on the economic progress of all Americans,” Heystek said in an email. “In the president’s obsessive will to inflict trauma on the federal bureaucracy, ultimately, trauma will be felt by all of us in the main streets of Arizona in Wisconsin.”