Minority Business Development Agency Gets Dismantled After Dispersing $3.2B In Contracts Under The Biden Administration

A resource for minority-owned businesses may be impacted due to a new round of federal job cuts.

Inc. reports new changes are underway at the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA), which was first established in 1969 by former President Richard Nixon. Under former President Joe Biden’s administration alone, the MBDA helped provide 23,000 jobs and $3.2 billion in contracts to minority enterprises, the outlet notes.

The Trump administration sent an email on April 17, 2025, stating that federal grants to the agency, which operated about 38 business centers, were being dismantled, as the administration believes the funding is “no longer consistent with the agency’s priorities and no longer serves the interest of the United States and the MBDA program.”

President Donald Trump’s orders will be a drastic hit to many Black and other entrepreneurs of color. Louisiana’s business center, which worked with hundreds of businesses, was told the MBDA is “repurposing its funding allocations in a new direction,” to be in compliance with the Trump administration.

“We had a conference planned for this year that was going to be an opportunity to provide more training and offer a matchmaking event where businesses could meet with others located in the New Orleans area to identify any potential contract opportunities,” said Charletta Fortson, the program director at the Louisiana MBDA Business Center, according to the outlet. “We were able to connect socially and economically disadvantaged businesses to different resources, and that resource is essentially terminated as of April 17.”

Not all MBDA business centers have received an email notification. What Inc. also reported is at least 32 staffers have been laid off as of April 2025. In fact, a Small Business Majority spokesperson stated they “heard from multiple sources that MBDA in DC has only one staffer remaining,” a stark contrast to its full-capacity employee total of 100.

”Information provided to our offices makes clear the [reduction in force] your Department initiated at the MBDA was even more sweeping than we had feared, leaving the agency with effectively no staff,” Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), and Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-PA) said in a letter written to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

“Your Department appears to have dismantled the MBDA without any act of Congress—disregarding the programs and initiatives the Administration is directed by statute to implement.”