Another night in Washington and another executive order from Trump, this one ordering the elimination of four specific federal entities, including the Presidio Trust in San Francisco, declaring them examples of "waste and abuse."

The slashing of programs and firing of employees continues in Trump's chaotic first hundred days back in office, and one of the targets in a Wednesday night executive order is close to home here in SF. It was clearly a hastily made order, complete with a mispelling in the header: "Commencing the Reduction of Federal Bureaucracy Ecexutive [sic] order," and in it Trump ordered the "elimination" or dissolution of four entities: the Presidio Trust, the Inter-American Foundation, the United States African Development Foundation, and the United States Institute of Peace.

The latter three are all in Washington, DC, with only the Presidio Trust being the outlier in San Francisco. The US African Development Foundation was established by Congress in 1980 to invest in individual entrepreneurs and grassroots African enterprises — another soft-power sort of agency along the lines of US AID, which was Elon Musk and company's first target for elimination.

The US Institute of Peace was established in 1984 by Congress as "a nonpartisan, independent organization dedicated to protecting U.S. interests by helping to prevent, mitigate and resolve violent conflicts abroad," in order to prevent such conflicts from becoming larger wars. It is similarly aligned with US AID, and critics have pointed out that ever since the War on Terror began over two decades ago, the institute's work has been somewhat moot.

But the Presidio Trust is not a foreign investment or foreign policy group or soft-power initiative. It is essentially a real estate management entity that has not taken annual funding from Congress since 2013, which collects rent on federally owned properties in the Presidio, and oversees their maintenance. The Trust was established by Congress in 1996 in order to take care of, refurbish, and manage the large number of structures on the former military base, and to oversee the development of things like the Letterman Digital Arts Center. And the non-profit largely sustains itself through this leasing revenue.

This order technically instructs these "unnecessary" government entities to reduce staffing and activities "to the minimum presence and function required by law."

The Trust issued a statement suggesting that it does not foresee any impacts on its activities, and it plans to submit a report showing the new administration how all of its activities are "statutory."

"We do this, as required by the Trust Act, through an innovative public/private partnership that minimizes cost to the United States Treasury and makes efficient use of private sector resources," said Lisa Petrie, the Trust's PR lead, in a statement to the Chronicle.

"In 1996, the Presidio Trust Act was passed in a bipartisan way when Republicans held the majority in Congress, and has retained bipartisan support ever since," House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi said in a statement. "The Presidio Trust is statutory and it has been protected from assaults over time by its statutory strength."

State Senator Scott Wiener took to Xitter last night, saying, "Trump is now trying to kill off the Presidio Trust in SF — a national treasure that’s transformed the Presidio into a self-sustaining, world-class park."

Wiener added, "Trump is so vile that he can’t tolerate success if it doesn’t benefit him personally."

This latest move comes shortly after the Presidio Trust figured into a lengthy draft document circulating among Congressional Republicans, which sought to claw back $200 million that was granted to the Trust in 2023 for infrastructure needs. Petrie said of the grant that it "is completely obligated and we’re making progress on the infrastructure projects it is funding."