Trump administration cuts export office staff amid escalating trade war

The Trump administration has fired numerous employees at the International Trade Administration (ITA), a Commerce Department branch that is set to play a key role in enacting President Trump’s trade agenda.

ITA, which aims to promote U.S. industry and exports abroad, cut probationary employees late last month as part of a wider push to reduce the federal workforce led by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

The cuts seemingly run counter to Trump’s heavy focus on trade in his second term. As Trump levies hefty tariffs against America’s closest allies, he has repeatedly complained about the country’s trade deficits.

“If President Trump genuinely cares about improving the trade balance, boosting US exports and restricting imports where it's appropriate, the ITA plays a critical role in that,” said Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

“It would seem to me that a strong ITA fits very well with the way Trump has traditionally described the goals of his trade agenda,” he continued.

ITA probationary employees began receiving termination notices in late February. Probationary employees are federal workers who have been hired or promoted in the last year or two.

The Trump administration has taken aim at this group of employees, who are slightly easier to fire than others, as it seeks to slash the federal workforce and cut government spending.

Office of Personnel Management (OPM) officials met with agency leaders in mid-February and directed them to begin firing staff still in their probationary period.

Employees at the ITA say they were caught off guard given the president’s trade priorities. Several were working on executive orders and memorandums signed by Trump.

The America First Trade Policy memo, which he signed on his first day in office, directs several of his Cabinet secretaries, including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, to “investigate the causes of our country’s large and persistent annual trade deficits.”

It also calls for a review of unfair trade practices, as well as policies related to antidumping and countervailing duty laws — both areas in which ITA plays a role.

“One of the big priorities of the administration is to make sure that U.S. companies are exporting, that there's U.S. leadership in specific sectors,” one former ITA employee told The Hill.

“These are critical things that the administration wants to do,” they continued. “They want to establish leadership in certain industries, and proceeded to let go people that were directly implementing those policies and worked in those sectors and advocated for US industry.”

“It wasn't like we were implementing things from the previous administration, like DEI, for example,” they added, pointing to the diversity, equity and inclusion programs than have been a key target for the Trump administration.

They received their termination letter while in the office and were given an hour to pack up their things, before being escorted out of the building by security. Another ITA employee received their termination notice while in Japan for work, alongside colleagues from other agencies and industry members.

“The morale has hit a complete rock bottom,” a current ITA employee told The Hill. “The way people have been fired, it's just such an egregious act, and with zero [regard] for however long that person has worked there, or how they've contributed.”

They noted that staff have not received any communication from Lutnick since he was confirmed in mid-February.

“[It] makes me wonder how valued we are, and it's a bit confusing, considering our goal is to promote U.S. business, their goods and services internationally, which one would think aligns perfectly well with the Trump administration,” they said.

“It almost seems like by cutting all these people, it's in effect undermining the goals of the administration,” they added.

Trump has long voiced concerns about U.S. trade deficits, lamenting that U.S. imports outstrip exports with numerous countries. The U.S. trade deficit overall reached a record high of $1.2 trillion in 2024.

“They have to balance out their trade, number one,” Trump said of Mexico and Canada in early February. “We have deficits with almost every country — not every country, but almost — and we’re going to change it.”

The U.S. maintains trade deficits with Mexico, Canada and China, its three largest trading partners. Trump slapped all three countries with tariffs last week.

China was hit with a 10 percent tariff, on top of the 10 percent tariff Trump announced last month. Canada and Mexico initially faced 25 percent tariffs across the board, before the president announced limited exemptions for goods covered by a North American trade agreement he negotiated in 2020.

The exemptions will end in early April, when Trump plans to enact reciprocal tariffs on other countries with duties on U.S. imports.

Despite Trump’s concerns, many economists do not view trade deficits as inherently bad, noting that they often reflect a strong economy supported by consumer spending and foreign investment.

The U.S. trade deficits with top partners — particularly China — are often viewed by economists as signs of the strength of American purchasing power and demand.

“To the extent that you're worried about the trade balance and want to see increased opportunities for U.S. exports, the ITA place plays a pretty important role there,” Alden said.

However, between the cuts of probationary employees and the Trump administration’s deferred resignation program, ITA’s capacity is limited, current and former employees said.

The deferred resignation program offered federal workers eight months of pay and benefits to those who wished to leave government amid Trump’s return-to-office mandate. Some 75,000 workers across the federal government took the offer.

“I know that many teams are going to be very short-staffed,” said one former ITA employee. “They're going to struggle to be able to work as effectively as they did previously because the people who were fired were doing important work, and they're not just expendable.”

The cuts are resulting in a significant loss of skills, noted Gary Hufbauer, a nonresident fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

“The thing is that these people and these particular jobs, they have acquired a lot of very specific knowledge on the U.S. regulations and laws dealing with trade affairs, and they're not easily replaced,” Hufbauer said.

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