Since President Donald Trump's return to the White House in January 2025, his administration has cut the work of many U.S. government agencies, including those focused on foreign policy. Now there are concerns that the Peace Corps can join other foreign aid programs the government is trying to demolish.

The U.S. International Development Agency closed in February and March 2025, with its workforce reduced from more than 10,000 to 15.

In early April 2025, members of Elon Musk's administration efficiency appeared at the Washington, D.C. Peace Corps headquarters, which could cut.

Ethics also calls for a reduction in the number of Peace Corps' 970 full-time employees who help recruit and oversee volunteer work.

The Guardian reported on April 28 that the Peace Corps is offering acquisitions to employees and that the Peace Corps leadership is expected to have a “significant restructuring effort.”

"The agency will continue to operate and continue to recruit, locate and train volunteers while continuing to support its health, safety and security, and effective services," the Peace Corps told the New York Times in a statement on April 28.

As an international scholar, I think it is important to understand the subtle and important role the Peace Corps plays in helping the United States maintain a positive international image.

Understand the Peace Corps

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy, together with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), created the Peace Corps, an independent agency of the federal government as a way to revitalize American diplomacy.

Kennedy saw the State Department as an innovator-less organization, made up of selfish people, without much practical experience.

Since the 1960s, the Peace Corps has sent more than 240,000 U.S. citizens, many of whom are young, volunteering in more than 60 low- and middle-income countries in short-term programs, from teaching students English to helping farmers increase food production. There are about 3500 to 4,000 volunteers abroad every year.

As Kennedy hoped, many of these American volunteers eventually returned to the State Department, some of whom rose to the highest positions, such as Christopher Hill, a professional diplomat who served in the Cameroon Peace Corps in the 1970s.

Peace Corps volunteers, sometimes referred to as PCV, also continue to engage in other types of public services, including educational roles. It is also common for former Peace Corps volunteers to work for the United States Agency for International Development.

The role of the Peace Corps in the U.S. Government

The daily activities of the Peace Corps and U.S. foreign policy are not part of the same as the State Department, for example, having diplomatic missions around the world.

The Peace Corps’ annual budget is $495 million, and it does promote U.S. foreign policy goals by strengthening U.S. soft power. In this case, soft power means making others want what you want.

Political scientist Joseph Nye introduced the academic concept of soft power to the mainstream in the early 1990s. This is often misunderstood. Some mistakenly call the army a tough power, economic and diplomatic tools as soft power.

But the soft power - and the charm of projects like the Peace Corps is based on attractiveness. In short, the Peace Corps helps improve the image of the United States around the world.

My research on Latin American countries shows that the existence of the Peace Corps program improves the general perception of American communities in the United States. A good reputation promotes goodwill and helps the United States achieve its specific foreign policy goals, whether it is a trade deal or helps eliminate conflict.

Political scientist Stephen Magu has found similar results throughout Africa, including the number of Peace Corps volunteers in a country and the support of the United States in the work of the United Nations.

Peace Corps Experience

The Peace Corps utilized a very selective application process to recruit Americans of all ages to volunteer for two years in foreign countries, working in different kinds of service jobs, from agriculture, education to health and the environment.

Most are young people with college degrees, but there is no age limit to qualify and no requirements for college degrees.

No Peace Corps experience.

However, all volunteers live and work in a community where volunteers are asked to help with different types of activities. This may include helping local women build their own small businesses in Panama, or providing health workshops on reducing the risk of contracting and spreading HIV in Eswatini, formerly Swaziland. These volunteers are usually the only Americans around*.

Volunteers are expected to live humbly and receive monthly living allowances to cover their exposed essentials.

Volunteers’ work is not easy and not without risks. Since 1961, 311 people have died while serving. Most deaths are due to accidents and are usually related to transportation. Some people die from illness and illness, some of which are victims of murder.

The Peace Corps’ Volunteer Work Method

The Peace Corps highlighted the so-called grassroots development in the foreign aid community. This means that Peace Corps volunteers are trying to leverage local funding and expertise to achieve goals that the community and volunteers have set together.

Critics of the Peace Corps argue that it has not made extensive changes, among other things, that can reliably last beyond the two-year term of each volunteer.

But the Peace Corps is not about changing the trajectory of a country's economic development and suddenly making poor countries rich. Volunteers do help people in the community in small but meaningful ways.

For example, from 1989 to 1991, I volunteered with the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic, I had a demonstration vegetable garden where I grew nutritious vegetables such as spinach and mustard vegetables. Dominicans have traditionally not eaten these vegetables, but I let my neighbors and friends try it. Some people learn to really like them and start growing on their own.

Another public diplomacy

When asked in 1962 how he viewed the Peace Corps' relationship with American foreign policy, Kennedy replied that he saw the Peace Corps as an opportunity to "emphasize different parts of our American role" rather than the idea that the United States is "a demanding, narrow, barbaric, materialistic society."

The Trump administration tends to see foreign aid programs as open charity programs that need to be eliminated.

Foreign aid programs, I think, are not charities—they are public diplomatic tools that contribute to the global power of the United States. If the Peace Corps are eliminated, the United States will lose another important tool of foreign policy.