Foreign food safety inspections conducted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have hit a historic low due to Trump Administration budget and staff cuts, according to an investigative report by ProPublica.

Through analysis of FDA’s publicly available Inspections Dashboard, ProPublica determined that, in March 2025, the number of foreign food inspections conducted by the agency dropped by nearly half compared to the monthly average—110 foreign food inspections per month—seen in the previous two years. By the end of July 2025, the number of foreign food inspections conducted by the agency was nearly 30 percent lower compared to similar periods in the previous two years.

In May 2025, FDA announced its intent to expand the use of unannounced inspections at foreign manufacturing facilities that produce regulated goods; a goal which the agency has failed to meet, at least with respect to foods, and which ProPublica’s anonymous FDA sources called “comical,” given the severe cuts to FDA’s resources.

Historically, even prior to the Trump Administration, FDA has struggled to meet its inspection targets—both foreign and domestic—set by Congress under the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) in 2011. A 2025 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) uncovered that FDA has never met its FSMA-mandated foreign facility inspection goals. In 2019, the year in which FDA conducted the greatest number of foreign inspections, FDA only completed 9 percent (1,727) of the 19,200 target.

Since the inauguration of President Trump, however, the already under-resourced FDA has experienced:

• An initial round of mass layoffs in February, including 89 “indiscriminate” firings of experts within the Human Foods Program, resulting in the resignation of the Deputy Commissioner for Human Foods, Jim Jones.
• An FDA spending freeze revealed in March, requiring staffers to “get every travel or purchase expense preapproved through an opaque, multistep process,” and resulting in a time lag that specifically impacted the inspection force. The significance of this issue was reaffirmed by staffers who spoke to ProPublica, revealing that investigators (who are responsible for paying off their own credit cards used for agency expenses) waited as a backlog of unfulfilled reimbursements climbed to more than $1 million.  
• Another round of mass layoffs at HHS in March–April, including 3,500 and 2,400 staffers employed at FDA and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), respectively. Although HHS claimed that this round of layoffs would not affect inspectors, sources began to reveal this was not actually the case.
• The eventual voluntary resignation of many FDA inspectors who could afford to leave, per insiders who spoke to ProPublica. The inspectorate workforce was significantly affected by the culling of agency support staff; after FDA lost 65 percent of those responsible for travel and budgets, inspectors found themselves burdened by having to book their own travel and accommodations, obtain diplomatic passports and visas, and coordinate with foreign authorities—resulting in frustration and inefficiency.
• Significant budget cuts that may have decreased FDA’s funding from $7.2 billion in Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 to as little as $6.5 billion in FY 2026—a reduction that was suggested to be made possible by moving total responsibility for domestic food facility inspections to states (despite states also facing reduced funding that they received from FDA and relied on to conduct regular activities). Congressional actions seeking to address FDA budget disparities suggest these cuts were made official for FY 2026.

Experts agree that the stark decrease in foreign food facility inspections leave American consumers at an increased risk of foodborne illness.

Neither FDA nor the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) responded to ProPublica’s request for comment or data.