5 hours Ago By Dan Petrella
Peter Goldsmith received official notice late Wednesday afternoon that the moment he hoped to avoid had arrived. President Donald Trump’s administration had terminated the federal government’s agreement to fund the Soybean Innovation Lab at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign . Goldsmith has run the lab for more than a decade, and just three years ago it was awarded a $30 million grant from the U.
S. Agency for International Development to continue its work helping a burgeoning soybean industry in sub-Saharan Africa and, in the process, opening a potential new market for a crop that is key to Illinois’ economy. Similar notices went out to 18 other crop innovation labs at land-grant universities across the country and to thousands of other projects funded by foreign assistance programs as the State Department charged ahead with plans to slash spending on other countries and shut down USAID, which has been in the crosshairs of Trump and adviser Elon Musk.
In all, the Trump administration terminated 5,800 USAID contracts and about $60 billion in foreign aid, according to news reports and court documents. A federal court had ordered the administration to begin releasing foreign assistance funds it froze in January but Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts intervened late Wednesday, temporarily blocking the lower court’s order to release the money. Hours earlier, the U.
of I.’s grants office was informed that funding for the soybean lab had been canceled “for convenience and the interests of the U.S.
government” and that State Department officials had “determined your award is not aligned with agency priorities and made a determination that continuing the program is not in the national interest,” Goldsmith said Thursday. “I would absolutely disagree with that assertion, and I think that the Soybean Innovation Lab was directly supportive of national interests, and especially Midwest interests, in terms of establishing that foundation for soybean market development in Africa,” Goldsmith said. “I mean, the beauty of the investment .
.. and the power of the investment was that it also supported economic development in sub-Saharan Africa in a novel way.
” Organizations around the world — including some in Illinois — were receiving similar notifications, creating consternation and confusion among groups who do work funded by U.S. foreign assistance.
Many organizations receiving the notices had previously been granted waivers from the freeze because of the lifesaving nature of their work, The New York Times reported . Chicago-based Heartland Alliance International, which has worked in several countries on behalf of the U.S.
government, said Friday that it was still working to get clarity on the status of its various grants. Through federal funding, including a $4.5 million USAID grant, the group has been working in Colombia with victims of the country’s armed conflicts and migrants from neighboring Venezuela who have fled instability in that nation.
Part of the organization’s work is to help Venezuelan migrants establish stable lives in Colombia, thus preventing them from making “dangerous migration journeys,” including crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, Liz Drew, a senior adviser with Heartland Alliance International, told the Tribune two weeks ago.
It’s a mission that should work in concert with the Trump administration’s goal of reducing migration. As a result of the earlier freeze, the nonprofit group furloughed 90% of its staff in January, more than 200 people, and laid off eight people at its headquarters. A man walks past the entrance to the National Soybean Research Center, which houses the office of the Soybean Innovation Lab, on the University of Illinois campus in Urbana, on Feb.
14, 2025. President Donald Trump’s administration has terminated the federal government’s agreement to fund the Soybean Innovation Lab, according to a notice the lab’s director received Wednesday. (John J.
Kim/Chicago Tribune) The status of the Chicago-based American Bar Association’s $109 million in federal awards for 19 USAID programs was unclear as of Friday, and the organization said it had no information immediately available. The legal group is a plaintiff in the lawsuit against the Trump administration that is currently in the hands of the Supreme Court, which is weighing whether to permanently vacate the lower court’s order to allow foreign aid to flow once again. Bill Bay, the bar association’s president, said in a February interview that by withholding funds approved by Congress and attempting to shut down USAID without legislative approval, the administration was subverting the rule of law — a legal concept his group promotes overseas through its foreign aid grants.
“If the government doesn’t want to do this kind of work anymore, there’s a right way and a wrong way to do this,” Bay said. “You can’t close up congressionally created agencies without going back to Congress.” At the University of Chicago, a spokesman for NORC, which is part of a consortium that last year received a $53 million, 10-year grant to better integrate the use of evidence and data into USAID programs, declined to comment on the status of its funding.
Professor Emeritus Brian Diers checks on varieties of soybeans being grown for the Soybean Innovation Lab at the University of Illinois campus in Urbana on Feb. 14, 2025. (John J.
Kim/Chicago Tribune) Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order freezing the funds stated that the administration would undergo a 90-day review of all grants, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying spending would be evaluated by asking the questions: “Does it make America safer? Does it make America stronger? Does it make America more prosperous?” In a court filing Wednesday in U.S.
District Court in Washington, D.C., the State Department said it had already completed that review process , a little more than 30 days since the executive order was signed.
“Secretary Rubio has now made a final decision with respect to each award, on an individualized basis, affirmatively electing to either retain the award or terminate it ...
as inconsistent with the national interests and foreign policy of the United States,” the filing said. But Goldsmith said it would be “common sense” to question the thoroughness of the reviews. “I didn’t receive any inquiries,” he said, adding he “wasn’t asked to submit any documentation on return on investment.
” Professor Peter Goldsmith, director and principal investigator of the Soybean Innovation Lab, responds to emails in his office at the lab on the University of Illinois campus in Urbana on Feb. 14, 2025. Goldsmith says he received a notification Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s administration has terminated the federal government’s agreement to fund the lab.
(John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune) “The return on investment for soybean growers is extremely high, especially the impact the Soybean Innovation Lab was having in executing its mission and developing the market for soy in Africa,” Goldsmith said. In addition, ending the program will also have a long-term impact on the soybean economy in Illinois, the top U.
S. producer of the crop and home to industry giant Archer Daniels Midland Co. Goldsmith has previously noted that the market for soy is growing globally and that as markets grow it becomes more profitable for U.
S. and Illinois farmers to produce soy. The investment in the soybean lab was a natural fit for government funding because it provides an economic engine in a developing part of the world while at the same time laying the groundwork for a future market for farmers in Illinois and across the U.
S, he said. Although growers won’t feel the impact of the shutdown immediately, he said, the U.S.
risks losing a foothold in Africa if countries there close their doors to the genetically modified soybeans American farmers export. The impact is more immediate for Goldsmith and his staff of 30, who already were preparing to be laid off April 15 as a result of the earlier freeze. “We had built up something truly special, impactful, unique and .
.. in one night, it’s simply trashed to zero, so there’s a lot of shock still,” Goldsmith said.
“USAID really appreciated (the lab’s work), and our clients — our hundreds of clients — were pulling us into all these opportunities to develop soy. I mean, it’s really going well. So this is a complete shock,” he added.
.
