Trump tariffs and DEI crackdown disrupt Seattle arts groups
It’s been a long year for arts organizations.
In the spring, the Trump administration rescinded millions in federal grant funding and laid off staff across agencies that support the arts and humanities, sending nonprofits across the country into a budgetary panic. Millions of dollars have evaporated in Washington state alone. Several local organizations have since canceled or paused programs due to lost funding, and some have reported staff cuts, furloughs or reduced hours.
This summer, Seattle-area arts leaders are girding themselves for more downstream impacts of federal policy, including President Donald Trump’s sweeping spending and tax law — and many fear this is only the initial stage of a daunting time for the cultural sector.
The bill’s future impacts remain to be seen, but Washington state arts leaders say they’re already wrestling with domino effects from federal decisions.
Tariff uncertainty has stoked economic jitters, causing corporations and private funders to scale back financial support. Visitors are watching their wallets, too, according to multiple organizations that have noticed a drop in traffic in recent months. And a federal crackdown on equity, diversity and inclusion initiatives has had a chilling effect on nonprofits, some arts leaders said.
Multiple groups that spoke to The Seattle Times expect the ramifications to ripple out for years to come. And so, five years after the pandemic profoundly destabilized the creative economy, local organizations are once again bracing for a bumpy ride.
“Every day is a new day where things you thought were not possible are happening,” said Kristina Goetz of Artist Trust, a nonprofit funding individual Washington state artists. “It’s sort of like death by a thousand cuts.”
“A perfect storm”
The effects of Trump’s new tax and spending law on the arts sector will take some time to play out. Advocates say it will impair nonprofits by disincentivizing charitable donations from high-income earners and corporations, and that it will hurt artists who rely on safety net programs like Medicaid and food assistance. The Trump administration, meanwhile, points to deep tax cuts and increased funding for defense, immigration enforcement and oil and gas production.
“Artists and other activists who are no longer able to rely off of government largesse will soon find an abundance of employment opportunities in a booming private sector thanks to the Trump administration’s pro-growth policy agenda,” said White House spokesperson Kush Desai in a statement.
For now, consumer sentiment data indicates Americans are fretting over inflation, tariffs and the potential of a slowing economy. They’ve been cutting back on spending in response.
“This has resulted in fewer … people coming to the museum and thus less revenue,” said Stephanie Arduini, CEO of Seattle Children’s Museum. Ticket sales make up half of the organization’s budgeted revenue, so “fewer people coming to the museum substantially reduces the resources available to maintain our exhibits (and) produce programs for local families.”
And much like a family that’s reluctant to spend $30 on a museum trip, donors, too, are less likely to spend $30,000 or $3 million right now.
“Economic uncertainty is the enemy of investment,” said Megan Kiskaddon, executive director of Seattle performing arts nonprofit On the Boards. “Funders donate generally from their investments, so if their investments go down, it’s likely that arts funding from individuals and foundations will also go down.”
That may also be the case for arts supporters who purchase art from galleries, which are generally for-profit entities that fulfill a nonprofit-esque mission of supporting the arts.
“Several collectors say their portfolios are fluctuating too much to make purchases right now,” said Jim Wilcox of Seattle’s esteemed Greg Kucera Gallery.
Some local organizations said corporations have iced sponsorships as they assess the economic and political landscape, further straining tight budgets.
Repercussions from the loss of this kind of funding are extra impactful these days: Due to inflation and lagging postpandemic ticket sales, organizations are more dependent on grants and private funds than even six years ago, according to a report by ArtsFund, a statewide arts advocacy and grant-making organization.
“So the federal chaos creates a perfect storm,” Kiskaddon said.
She and other arts leaders also expect economic uncertainty to impact travel and tourism.
Lauren Russell, Seattle Art Museum’s director of visitor experience, said the downtown museum has seen fewer international tourists from Canada and Europe, denting its 2025 attendance figures: General admission from January through June was down by about 3,000 visitors compared with the same period last year, while the museum had projected growth.
Kiskaddon said changes in tourist behavior can also have indirect trickle-down effects: Consumer spending contributes to sales tax revenue, which feeds into King County’s Doors Open — a major grant program for arts, heritage and science organizations — as well as Seattle’s admission tax, which funds the city’s Office of Arts & Culture.
“It’s all interlinked,” Kiskaddon said.
More than money
Arts organizations say the effects of federal actions go beyond the balance sheet.
The Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration and diversity, equity and inclusion — through executive orders, efforts to rewrite rules for some grants and talk of threats to nonprofits and businesses “promoting” DEI — “have already impacted the diversity of art we present,” said a manager at a local arts organization who was not authorized to speak publicly about the issue. “There are tours that have canceled shows because all or some members are citizens of other countries and are concerned about cross-border travel,” they said.
This spring, out of concerns that speaking up could endanger her visa, a Mexican artist decided against commenting on the record when a piece of her artwork got stuck in Customs limbo on its way to the Pacific Northwest.
Local creatives and advocates say this chilling effect is beginning to feel familiar.
“There is substantial fear that if organizations in the nonprofit sector speak out, they will be targeted by the Trump administration and its allies,” said a representative for a Seattle-based cultural nonprofit, who asked to remain anonymous for this story. “Even individual board members and staff are concerned that they are under threat.”
“We have trans employees who feel nervous about traveling or being as public,” said one museum executive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, nervous that they’d add to the anxiety of their employees. “Even our internal decision to stay right on course with our commitment to DEI has made some people hopeful and others worried about us being a target.”
Some local organizations have also started tweaking DEI language on their websites due to fears it could jeopardize future funding, said Brian J. Carter, the executive director of 4Culture, King County’s cultural funding agency. Some have wondered whether they should tweak grant application language.
“I mean, I’ve even had conversations (about) what is on cultural organizations’ employee desks, the T-shirts that folks are wearing,” he said.
Tom Helleberg, publisher of Mountaineers Books, the Seattle-based nonprofit publisher of outdoor recreation, lifestyle and conservation books, said anti-DEI orders have resulted in “censorship of our publications among buyers at federal organizations, even for books that have already been reviewed and approved.”
“In our sample, these removals have exclusively targeted books written by BIPOC and LGBTQ authors,” he said, referring to Black, Indigenous and people of color. “Buyers are preemptively looking to accommodate anti-DEI executive orders, likely because they feel their jobs are at risk.”
Michael Greer, president and CEO of ArtsFund, said this administration’s decisions amplify the sector’s extant woes — and could have financial and social consequences “for generations.”
Call it the butterfly effect: A program gets scrapped, free tickets are nixed, arts education lands on the chopping block — ultimately, access to cultural programs is curtailed.
“So what do we end up with?” Greer said. “We end up with another generation … deprived (of) the benefits of arts and culture, which we know are significant. What does that do to society 10 or 15 years from now?”