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The Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace

December 11, 2025
Rebecca Gehlmann

To many of us, speech-and-debaters, the website of the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) was once a great place to find resources about conflict resolution, briefings on international conflict, or definitions to frame a debate round. The congressionally funded, non-partisan national institute’s website is drastically different today. What once was a rich resource has one remaining page: a sparse homepage heralding President Trump’s peace deal between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. What is the mission of the institute, according to the new website? To support the Executive Branch in resolving violent conflict abroad. As the website’s current URL states, welcome to the new USIP website!

P.S.: Check back in for “ongoing updates on U.S. international peacemaking efforts by the Trump administration.” That’s all you will find here, anyway!

The Downfall of the United States Institute of Peace

Founded in 1984 under the Reagan Administration, the USIP’s mission was to “promote[...] research, policy analysis, education, and training on international peace and conflict resolution in an effort to prevent and resolve violent conflicts, and to promote post-conflict stability.” Since then, the think tank has promoted discourse and trained mediators to handle conflicts from the Syrian civil war to organized crime in Southeast Asia.

However, criticism against the organization began in late 2024. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, published a scathing criticism of the USIP. According to the article, the institute was failing on three counts: it lacked mechanisms for taxpayer accountability, was staffed by a majority of Democrats or pre-Trumpian Republicans, and had been hijacked by Biden appointees.

In February of the next year, President Trump issued an executive order “eliminating to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law” the USIP, along with other international relations institutes and, strangely, the trust of the San Francisco Presidio—a park by the Golden Gate Bridge. The executive order was the beginning of the USIP’s downfall. Soon, eleven of its fifteen board members received news of their termination, leaving only Secretary of Defense (or War–another high-profile renaming) Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Kenneth Jackson, a DOGE member. Tensions erupted when a DOGE team, accompanied by the D.C. police, stormed the organization’s headquarters. Yet, the turmoil wasn’t over. In May, a federal district court ruled against the administration and workers returned to the USIP. However, that decision was reversed mere weeks later by a federal appeals court.

The USIP made headlines again earlier this week, when President Trump added his name to the practically empty building’s facade. This bold move came in preparation for the signing of a peace deal between Rwanda and the DRC that the President helped broker.

The turmoil experienced by the United States Institute of Peace is by no means a rare occurrence in Washington. Funding has been slashed for many other foreign policy think tanks. For example, another nonpartisan think tank, the Wilson Center, was “quietly killed” around the same time. Similarly, there was the high-profile shuttering of the United States Agency of International Development.

What Does the Future Hold?

Today, the grim reality of the USIP’s fate can be observed by all viewers to its website. Institutes that once formed the backbone for foreign policy research, discourse, and education have quietly disappeared. However, one think tank has been able to continue operations. The Kennan Institute, which focuses on Russia and its former satellite states, was once housed in the Wilson Center, but survived the Trump administration's crackdown. The Kennan Institute has been able to secure enough funds from its endowment to continue its work—albeit with a fraction of its original staff and not enough office space to contain its collection of tens of thousands of books…and a head of a wild boar reported gifted to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger from Leonid Brezhnev during the Cold War. In September, the Wilson Center, the Kennan Institute beleaguered parent organization, also returned with limited operations.

Thus, it is clear that the American foreign policy community is resisting the unprecedented actions of the Trump administration. However, the USIP’s website still remains eerily devoid of context and under strict government control.