US Varsity To Lay Off 2,000 Employees Amid USAID Aid Cuts

The University Johns Hopkins in the United States, on Thursday, announced plans to lay off more than 2,000 of its employees worldwide due to President Donald Trump administration’s massive reduction in foreign aid funds.

In a statement made available by the school on Thursday, the leading scientist said, “This is a difficult day for our entire community. The termination of more than $800 million in USAID funding is now forcing us to wind down critical work.”

The university is based in Baltimore, Maryland, the largest city an hour’s drive north of the US capital. Still, it is eliminating at least 1,975 jobs in projects across 44 countries and 247 jobs in the United States.

Trump and his senior advisor, billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk, have embarked on a campaign to slash federal spending, targeting in particular support from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) for foreign aid, research and development.

Johns Hopkins University is one of the institutions hardest hit by the drastic reductions. In early March, its president, Ronald Daniels, explained in a message to students and professors that federal money accounted for nearly half of the backing its funds received last year.

Referring to a “historical relationship” between the “first American research university” and the government, he warned that students, researchers and professors would see damage to programs designed to improve health, hygiene and medicine worldwide.

Thursday’s announcement confirmed that the cuts hit the university’s medical school and school of public health and Jhpiego, a global non-profit organization founded more than 50 years ago that works to improve health in countries worldwide.

“Johns Hopkins is immensely proud of the work done by our colleagues in Jhpiego, the Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the School of Medicine to care for mothers and infants, fight disease, provide clean drinking water, and advance countless other critical, life-saving efforts around the world,” the university said.

The university received roughly $1 billion annually in funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

According to The New York Times, it is currently running 600 clinical trials. The newspaper added that Hopkins is one of the plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit challenging such cuts.

USAID, the largest funding agency for Jhpiego, distributes humanitarian aid worldwide, with health and emergency programs in around 120 countries.

Trump, whose appointees were dismantling the humanitarian agency, signed an executive order in January demanding a freeze on all US foreign aid to allow time to assess expenses. Critics, however, warned that slashing USAID work will endanger millions of lives.