The College Fix

Donald Trump’s cuts to USAID has led Johns Hopkins University to cut workers in foreign countries

U.S. taxpayers will no longer subsidize nearly 2,000 Johns Hopkins University jobs overseas.

President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio plan to significantly scale back the United States Agency for International Development due to what the administration sees as wasteful spending. However, critics argue that USAID engages in lifesaving work overseas.

This includes Johns Hopkins University, which says half of its budget comes from federal research grants – and will cut 1,975 overseas jobs and 247 stateside personnel due to Trump’s cuts.

“This is a difficult day for our entire community,” the university told the media, as reported by NBC News. “The termination of more than $800 million in USAID funding is now forcing us to wind down critical work here in Baltimore and internationally.”

However, much of that “critical work” is not done in Baltimore, but instead in “44 other countries in support of the university’s Bloomberg School of Public Health, its medical school and an affiliated nonprofit organization,” according to CBS News.

The university previously warned of future cuts in a March 4 statement:

Over the past six weeks [since Trump’s inauguration], we have experienced a fast and far-reaching cascade of executive orders and agency actions affecting higher education and federally sponsored research. What began as stop work orders or pauses in grant funding allocations has morphed into cancellations and terminations. Grant reviews at various agencies have been suspended, which means that grant applications submitted by our colleagues are not being evaluated or recommended for funding in a timely fashion. We anticipate that in the coming months we will see other areas where federal actions may result in a significant reduction in research work, though at this time, we are not certain of their scope and magnitude.

A State Department review of USAID identified just 18% of the programs were worth saving.

After a 6 week review we are officially cancelling 83% of the programs at USAID.

The 5200 contracts that are now cancelled spent tens of billions of dollars in ways that did not serve, (and in some cases even harmed), the core national interests of the United States.

In…

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) March 10, 2025

USAID, according to Secretary Rubio, “spent tens of billions of dollars in ways that did not serve, (and in some cases even harmed), the core national interests of the United States.”

“In consultation with Congress, we intend for the remaining 18% of programs we are keeping (approximately 1000) to now be administered more effectively under the State Department,” Rubio announced on X last week.

“Thank you to DOGE and our hardworking staff who worked very long hours to achieve this overdue and historic reform.”

MORE: Johns Hopkins rescinds DEI memo calling whites, Christians privileged

IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks to a crowd during an international trip; State Department/Facebook

Like The College Fix on Facebook / Follow us on Twitter