United States Institute of Peace
The United States Institute of Peace is an American independent, nonprofit, national institute established and funded by the United States Congress and tasked with promoting conflict resolution and prevention worldwide. It provides research, analysis, and training in diplomacy, mediation, and other peace-building measures.
The institute's headquarters building is in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington, D.C., at the northwest corner of the National Mall near the Lincoln Memorial and Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
Following years of proposals for a national peace academy, USIP was established in 1984 by legislation signed by President Ronald Reagan. The institute is governed by a bipartisan 15-member board of directors, which must include the secretary of defense, the secretary of state, and the president of the National Defense University. The remaining 12 members are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.
It has employed around 300 personnel and trained more than 65,000 professionals since its inception.
In February 2025, President Trump signed an executive order announcing his intention to dismantle the USIP. In March, he ordered that most of USIP's board of directors be fired. Under statute, the president may remove board members with the approval of the majority of the board or several congressional committees. The Department of Government Efficiency entered the USIP building to replace its leadership, fire its staff, and assume building ownership. Some of USIP's former leadership contested the legality of these moves in court, citing the agency's independent structure, and on May 19, Judge Beryl Howell ruled in USIP's favor. On June 27, Howell's ruling was lifted in federal appeals court.
In December 2025, the State Department announced that the institute had been renamed the "Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace," and President Donald Trump's name was attached to the facade of the building.
History
The United States Institute of Peace was created in 1984 when President Ronald Reagan signed the Department of Defense Authorization Act, 1985. As part of his signing statement, Reagan wrote: "I have been advised by the Attorney General that section 1706, relating to the President's power to remove members of the Board of Directors of the Institute, is neither intended to, nor has the effect of, restricting the President's constitutional power to remove those officers." It was officially nonpartisan and independent, receiving funding only through a congressional appropriation to prevent outside influence.Senator Jennings Randolph joined senators Mark Hatfield and Spark Matsunaga and Representative Dan Glickman in an effort to form a national peace academy akin to the national military academies. The 1984 act creating USIP followed from a 1981 recommendation of a commission formed to examine the peace academy issue appointed by President Jimmy Carter and chaired by Matsunaga.
Robert F. Turner was the institute's first president and CEO, holding that position from 1986 to 1987. He was followed by Ambassador Samuel W. Lewis, Ambassador Richard H. Solomon, and former congressman Jim Marshall. Kristin Lord served as acting president. Nancy Lindborg was sworn in as president on February 2, 2015 and served until 2020. Lise Grande was named the new president in October, 2020. She continued in that role until April 24, 2024. George Moose became the acting president and CEO.
In its early years, the institute sought to strengthen international conflict management and peacebuilding. In a 2011 letter of support for USIP, the Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs stated that this analytical work has "helped to build the conflict management and resolution field, both as an area of study and as an applied science".
Under Solomon's leadership, the institute expanded its operations in conflict zones and its training programs, initially in the Balkans and, after September 11, 2001, in Afghanistan and Iraq. It also became the home of several congressionally mandated blue-ribbon commissions, including the Iraq Study Group, the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States, and the Quadrennial Defense Review Independent Panel. Today, the institute conducts active programs in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Sudan, South Sudan, and elsewhere.
In 1996, Congress authorized the Navy to transfer jurisdiction of the federal land—a portion of its Potomac Annex facility on what has been known as Navy Hill—to become the site of the permanent USIP headquarters, across the street from the National Mall at 23rd Street and Constitution Avenue NW, in Washington, D.C. Prior to its construction, the institute leased office space in downtown Washington. Construction of the headquarters building concluded in 2011.
Second Trump administration
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on February 19, 2025, stating that "the non-statutory components and functions" of a handful of governmental entities, including the U.S. Institute of Peace, "shall be eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law"; instructing them to "reduce the performance of their statutory functions and associated personnel to the minimum presence and function required by law"; and to "submit a report to the director of the Office of Management and Budget confirming compliance with this order and stating whether the governmental entity, or any components or functions thereof, are statutorily required and to what extent."While some have interpreted the executive order as a move to terminate the institute, the United States Institute of Peace Act established the institute as an independent nonprofit institute, and provides a broad statutory mandate. limits the authority of the Office of Management and Budget to reviewing and submitting comments on the institute's congressional budget request. Under, the president may remove USIP board members with the approval of the majority of the board or several congressional committees.
In March 2025, Trump said he was firing all USIP board members, except the three ex officio members. Trump also said he was firing institute president Moose and appointing Kenneth Jackson as acting president. The Department of Government Efficiency gained access to the USIP building to install Jackson as president. USIP contested the firings and DOGE's access as illegal. USIP leadership filed a lawsuit to stop the Trump administration's actions.
While the legal dispute between USIP and the Trump administration was pending, Judge Beryl Howell declined to issue a temporary restraining order to stop the Trump administration from proceeding with a takeover of USIP. On March 28, the Trump administration fired more than 200 USIP staffers, most of the remaining employees. The Trump administration appointed DOGE staffer Nate Cavanaugh as USIP president. Cavanaugh transferred ownership of the headquarters building to the General Services Administration. However, on May 19, Howell ruled in favor of USIP. The Associated Press summarized her ruling as "because the removal of the board by the administration was illegal, all subsequent actions are null and void, including the firing of the staff and the transfer of the headquarters to the General Services Administration."
On June 27, 2025, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the Trump administration, arguing that the institute wields substantial executive power in foreign policy decisions, and that "he president's inability to control the institute's exercise of these 'significant executive power' undermines his ability to set and pursue his foreign policy objective."
On December 3, 2025, the White House rebranded the headquarters building as the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace and announced that it would host the official signing ceremony of a peace agreement between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda.
Original mission
The United States Institute of Peace Act, passed in 1984 and codified at, calls for the institute to "serve the people and the government through the widest possible range of education and training, basic and applied research opportunities, and peace information services on the means to promote international peace and the resolution of conflicts among the nations and peoples of the world without recourse to violence."The institute carries out this mission by operating programs in conflict zones, conducting research and analysis, operating a training academy and public education center, providing grants for research and fieldwork, convening conferences and workshops, and building the academic and policy fields of international conflict management and peacebuilding. On many of its projects, the institute works in partnership with non-governmental organizations, higher and secondary educational institutions, international organizations, local organizations, and U.S. government agencies, including the State Department and the Department of Defense.
Budget
USIP is funded annually by the U.S. Congress. For fiscal year 2023 Congress provided $55 million. USIP leadership requested $65 million for its FY 2026 budget. Occasionally, USIP receives funds transferred from government agencies, such as the Department of State, USAID, and the Department of Defense. By law, USIP is prohibited from receiving private gifts and contributions for its program activities. The restriction on private fundraising was lifted for the public-private partnership to construct the USIP headquarters.2011 Budget debate
An op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on February 16, 2011, by Republican congressman Jason Chaffetz of Utah and former Democratic congressman Anthony Weiner of New York, attacked funding for USIP as wasteful. Former U.S. Central Command commander Anthony Zinni wrote in a New York Times op-ed on March 7, 2011, however: "Congress would be hard-pressed to find an agency that does more with less.... The institute's share of the proposed international affairs budget, $43 million, is minuscule: less than one-tenth of one percent of the State Department's budget, and one-hundredth of one percent of the Pentagon's."On February 17, 2011, the House of Representatives for the 112th U.S. Congress voted to eliminate all funding for the U.S. Institute of Peace in FY 2011 continuing resolution. Funding for the institute was eventually restored by both the House and Senate on April 14, 2011, through the Department of Defense and Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act of 2011.