Congresswoman Nikema Williams Demands Trump Reverse Ending Programs that Support Minority-Owned Small Businesses

WASHINGTON – Congresswoman Nikema Williams (GA-05) led 22 other members of Congress in a congressional push demanding President Trump reverse his efforts to dismantle programs that support minority-owned small businesses.

On March 26, 2026, Trump signed the executive order “Addressing DEI Discrimination by Federal Contractors,” which does not protect against discrimination but instead reinstitutionalizes it. The order prohibits federal contractors from conducting targeted outreach to vendors of color, establishing mentoring or leadership development programs for underrepresented entrepreneurs, or directing any resources toward inclusion. Contractors who fail to comply face cancellation, suspension, and permanent debarment.

In January 2026, the Trump administration went beyond what any court required and declared the Small Business Administration’s 8(a) Business Development Program a burden on white Americans, stripping race from eligibility determinations entirely. Under the pretense of fraud and abuse associated with DEI favoritism, approximately 4,300 firms were required to submit years of financial records in a sweeping data call. Over 1,000 were suspended for missing the compliance deadline, and more than 600 are now being terminated. In 2025, only 65 businesses were admitted to the program—down from more than 700 the year prior.

In October 2025, Trump gutted the Department of Transportation’s Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) program, which served as the primary pathway for minority- and women-owned firms to access airport contracting opportunities that had been closed to them.

In March 2025, Trump signed an executive order to eliminate the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA), the only federal agency created specifically to support the growth of minority-owned businesses.

The Members wrote: 

“For decades, the federal government has recognized a simple truth: equal opportunity cannot exist where equal access has never been granted. From the Small Business Act of 1953 to the establishment of the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise program in 1983, this nation made a sustained commitment to ensuring that minority-owned small businesses could compete, contribute, and thrive in the American economy. That commitment was not charity, rather, these investments in economic opportunity sprang from an acknowledgment that centuries of exclusion will not self-correct without deliberate policy changes.”

“Let us be clear about what is happening here. Your administration is not protecting civil rights; rather it’s weaponizing the language of civil rights to dismantle the very infrastructure built to make them real. We are not fooled and we reject that framing entirely.”

“We call on you to rescind the March 26, 2026 Executive Order, to direct Secretary Sean Duffy to restore the DOT’s DBE and ACDBE programs with race-conscious eligibility intact, direct Administrator Kelly Loeffler to reinstate the SBA 8(a) program’s original mission, and fully restore the Minority Business Development Agency.”

“Entrepreneurs of color built their businesses despite every barrier this country placed in front of them, and they will continue to thrive, despite these discriminatory policies.”

The letter was signed by: Rep. Joyce Beatty (OH-03), Rep. Wesley Bell (MO-01), Rep. Yvette Clarke (NY-09), Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ-12), Rep. Andre Carson (IN-07), Rep. Ed Case (HI-01), Rep. Joaquin Castro (TX-20), Rep. Sylvia Garcia (TX-29), Rep. Al Green (TX-09), Rep. Jonathan Jackson (IL-01), Rep. Timothy Kennedy (NY-26), Rep. Robin Kelly (IL-02), Rep. Stephen Lynch (MA-08), Rep. LaMonica McIver (NJ-10), Rep. Seth Moulton (MA-06), Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC At-Large), Rep. Ayanna Pressley (MA-07), Rep. Lateefah Simon (CA-12), Rep. Terri Sewell (AL-07), Rep. Rashida Tlaib (MI-12), Rep. Bennie Thompson (MS-02), and Rep. Dina Titus (NV-01).

Click here to read the full letter.