When she saw the news on TikTok and CNN that the United States would halt funding HIV medication, Gwendolyn Dube, a 36-year-old single mother in South Africa who was diagnosed with AIDS as a child, thought to herself, “People are going to die.”
In his first week back in office, President Donald Trump’s administration announced it would exit the World Health Organization and implemented, via an executive order on “Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid,” a 90-day pause on the disbursement of all foreign aid.
This included pausing all funding for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.
PEPFAR, according to the State Department, has saved the lives of approximately 20 million people since it was created by George W. Bush in 2003. The $6.5 billion annual program has historically enjoyed wide bipartisan support and the praise of public health professionals and AIDS service organizations. But Republicans in Congress have been targeting it for the last several years, as part of a domestic and international campaign against the health of LGBTQ+ people and people living with HIV.
The ramifications of Trump’s global aid funding ban were swift. Responding to a “stop-work order” issued by the United States to its global partner organizations, Health Policy Watch reported that clinics began to close across the continent of Africa immediately. Despite a waiver from Secretary of State Marco Rubio supposedly excluding “life-saving” aid from the freeze, health and humanitarian groups have remained uncertain if they can proceed. Fearing future funding cuts means they can no longer budget and are instead cutting costs or scrambling to find other means of funding.
The effects are already being felt worldwide. One Beirut, Lebanon-based nongovernmental organization employee, speaking to The Intercept under the condition of anonymity in order to preserve their job, said their place of work — a well-known U.S. international organization that responds to humanitarian crises — started issuing staff “a termination acknowledgement letter by HR,” making clear they could be laid off soon. What will happen to the people who rely on their care, the employee worries. “Now of course it will be really hard for them.”
Steven W. Thrasher also contributed to this reporting.
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