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Judge blocks Trump order against three federal agencies
Antwon King got help for his trucking business from the Minority Business Development Agency center in Milwaukee. On Tuesday, a federal judge issued an injuction that blocked a Trump administration executive order to close down the MBDA's operations. (Photo courtesy of Antwon King)
The agencies involved are the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS), the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). They were among the agencies that President Donald Trump listed in a March 14 executive order to be effectively shut down.
The order violates the federal Administrative Procedures Act “in the arbitrary and capricious way it was carried out,” wrote Judge John J. McConnell of the U.S. District Court for Rhode Island.
“It also disregards the fundamental constitutional role of each of the branches of our federal government; specifically, it ignores the unshakable principles that Congress makes the law and appropriates funds, and the Executive implements the law Congress enacted and spends the funds Congress appropriated,” McConnell wrote.
The lawsuit against the order was brought by 21 states, including Wisconsin, with attorneys general in Rhode Island, Hawaii and New York leading the litigation.
“Today’s preliminary injunction is a critical win for the public interest,” said Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha in a statement. “When the Trump Administration attempts to dismantle these agencies, it is making a targeted, concerted effort to prohibit everyday people from accessing their full potential.”
Trump’s order named seven agencies — including the three involved in Tuesday’s court ruling — and directed them to eliminate their “non-statutory components and functions . . . to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law.” It also directed them to “reduce the performance of their statutory function and associated personnel to the minimum presence and function required by law.”
McConnell wrote that the day after issuing the order, Trump signed a continuing appropriations bill “in which Congress funded IMLS, MBDA, and FMCS through Sept. 30, 2025 at the same level it funded these agencies in fiscal year 2024.”
Despite that, in the aftermath of the order, the three agencies “are rescinding or deferring appropriated funds and do not plan to spend them,” McConnell wrote.
The FMCS provides mediation in labor negotiations between employers and unions and was established under the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act. The IMLS, established in the 1990s, provides grants to museums and libraries while also providing research and policy analysis for museums, libraries and information services.
Help for minority-owned business
The MBDA, part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, was launched in 1969 by President Richard Nixon and was given its present name 10 years later.
Over its lifetime “it’s gotten bipartisan support,” Henry Childs, who served as the agency’s national director from 2018 to 2020, the last three years of Trump’s first term, told the Wisconsin Examiner.
In 2021, the bipartisan infrastructure law enacted under President Joe Biden made the MBDA a permanent federal agency — the result of an amendment to the legislation promoted by Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin) with support from members of both parties. Baldwin went on to advocate for an MBDA center in Milwaukee, which was established in 2022.
After Trump returned to the White House this year, Department of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said at his January confirmation hearing that he did not support dismantling MBDA.
Last month, however, Milwaukee’s MBDA center abruptly closed when the federal grant that supported the program was canceled.
Carolyn Mosby, interim president of the North Central Minority Supplier Development Council, a nonprofit that had the federal contract to operate the center, said she received notice April 17 of the grant’s cancellation. The Milwaukee center was one of more than 40 across the country that were closed, she said.
“The MBDA and other programs are not about exclusion, they’re about inclusion,” Mosby told the Wisconsin Examiner. “These initiatives were created to address long-standing, well-documented disparities when it comes to access to capital and contracts and opportunities that have disproportionately affected minority businesses across this country.”
Antwon King started his Milwaukee-based trucking business in 2020 with a simple cargo van. He graduated to a semi-trailer cab unit and found his niche hauling loads on flatbed trailers across the country — everything from pipes to wire coils to farm equipment and heavy construction machinery.
Along the way, he needed help at times, primarily with access to capital, advice on business planning and connections with large corporations that had programs to encourage minority-owned suppliers.
Through coaching at the Milwaukee MBDA center, he got guidance on funding sources for new equipment and learned how to pursue opportunities targeted to minority owned businesses.
“Those resources were extremely valuable,” King said. “I was kind of shocked to hear they were shutting down. There were some things I was still working on.”
Democrats on the Senate Commerce, Science & Transportation committee have written three times to the Department of Commerce demanding that Lutnick protect the agency from Trump’s order.
The third letter, sent April 30, quotes the closing notice that centers received stating they are “unfortunately no longer consistent with the agency’s priorities and no longer serves the interests of the United States and the MBDA Program.” The termination notice also stated that “MBDA is repurposing its funding allocations in a new direction in furtherance of the President’s agenda.”
The letter demands an explanation of what types of funded activities would be “consistent with the agency’s priorities” and would serve its interests. It also demands a “detailed explanation” of how MBDA will repurpose its funding.
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