Which countries lost Peace Corps and Fulbright programs during the Trump administration and what were the documented reasons?

1. What was cut: China and Hong Kong’s exchanges

Reporting by The Diplomat and related contemporaneous coverage documents that the Peace Corps’ long-standing operations in China were abruptly cut in early 2020 and that the Trump administration announced measures to end the Fulbright exchange program for China and Hong Kong later that year, effectively closing two of the primary U.S. people-to-people programs in that bilateral relationship ^{[1] [2]}.

2. Official rationale: geopolitics, Hong Kong autonomy, and “national interest” framing

Documents and analyses tie the Fulbright termination to an executive order declaring Hong Kong insufficiently autonomous—a policy move the administration used to justify differential treatment and to terminate educational exchanges tied to mainland China and Hong Kong; the decision was framed as responding to Chinese actions that undermined U.S. interests and Hong Kong’s separate status ^[2]. More broadly, State messaging under the Trump administration emphasized reviewing and withdrawing from international commitments deemed “wasteful, ineffective, or harmful,” a posture invoked to justify sweeping cuts to foreign assistance and programs ^[3].

3. Peace Corps cuts: budget, reorganization, and strategic retrenchment

The Peace Corps’ removal from China is reported as part of the larger collapse in bilateral trust and a pattern of budgetary and structural pressure under the Trump White House—including attempted budget cuts, agency restructuring, and staff upheaval—that left Peace Corps operations vulnerable and led staffers to brace for deep cuts and “significant restructuring” ^{[1] [4] [5]}. Commentators have framed these moves as both an expression of geopolitical distance from China and an ideological move to shrink America’s global development footprint ^[6].

4. Alternative explanations and agendas in the reporting

Analysts and advocacy voices presented competing takes: some argue the closures were necessary national-security responses to Chinese policy and threats to Hong Kong’s autonomy (as the administration stated), while others see the moves as transactional, sacrificing long-term people-to-people diplomacy for short-term political signaling and a broader retrenchment from multilateral engagement ^{[2] [7]}. The State Department’s later-language about withdrawing from organizations as “wasteful” signals an ideological agenda to reassert sovereignty and cut perceived ideological influence abroad, an argument opponents say masks damage to soft power ^{[3] [7]}.

5. What is documented—and what remains unclear

Available reporting firmly documents the termination of the Peace Corps presence in China and the suspension/termination steps for Fulbright exchanges in China and Hong Kong, and it attributes those moves to the twin themes of deteriorating U.S.–China relations and administrative policy choices ^{[1] [2]}. Beyond those cases, the provided sources do not offer a comprehensive list of every country that lost Peace Corps or Fulbright programming during the Trump administration; they do, however, place the China/Hong Kong cuts within a wider pattern of budgetary pressure and program withdrawal rhetoric across U.S. foreign assistance and exchange programs ^{[7] [4] [3]}. Where the sources describe later board resignations or funding freezes, those relate to subsequent disputes over political interference and funding but are beyond the specific early-term actions documented against China and Hong Kong in 2020 ^[8].