By KT Reporter
Donald Trump’s administration is advancing major efforts to continue cutting US foreign aid and dismantling USAID.
A draft Fiscal Year 2026 budget proposes cutting the State Department by nearly 50%—over $30 billion—with foreign aid reduced by up to 75%, including the closure of at least 27 US diplomatic missions, primarily in Africa and Europe.
At the same time, the White House is preparing a formal request to Congress to cut $9 billion of previously approved funds. The cuts according to a health activist groups are aimed at USAID, State Department and public broadcasting programs.
The U.S. has been the largest donor government to global health and has prioritized health within its foreign assistance activities to a greater degree than other donor governments.
A KFF analysis. KFF is the independent source for health policy research, polling, and news. It found that 80% of global health awards are listed as terminated, totaling $12.7 billion in unobligated funding. Of the 770 global health awards identified, 615 (80%) are listed as terminated, slightly below the share of all awards terminated (86%).
These terminated awards include support for polio vaccination programs, activities aimed at improving maternal and child health (MCH), efforts to strengthen infectious disease detection systems around the world, HIV treatment projects, family planning support, and more.
Collectively, terminated health awards total $12.7 billion in unobligated funding, or 67% of unobligated funding for global health ($19.1 billion). The remaining 155 global health awards remain active, totaling $6.3 billion, or 33%, of the global health unobligated funding total.
The analysis whose findings were released this week examined the implications of the cuts, and among other assessments, found HIV-related programs are disproportionately impacted.
USAID through PEPFAR has been the leading funder to Uganda’s HIV/AIDS programming. It was acclaimed for the Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission PMTCT) thereby saving lives thousand of children who would have been born with the HIV virus.
KFF says since the start of his second term, President Trump has taken numerous actions impacting U.S. global health efforts including pausing foreign aid while conducting of review of existing programs, elimination of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which manages the majority of U.S. global health funding, and signing several executive actions placing restrictions on U.S. global health activities.
These efforts it said have significant implications for existing U.S. programs and left large gaps in the donor landscape.
If enacted, these cuts would deliver a major blow to US global health and development leadership, severely undermining programs focused on HIV and disease prevention, and further accelerating the administration’s efforts to dismantle USAID.
AIDS Vaccines Advocacy Coalition’s (AVAC) Executive Director, Mitchell Warren said in Science, “We are in the middle of a massive earthquake. And when buildings fall, we can’t just build back what we had before. We need a whole new global health funding architecture, but we won’t be able to build it fast enough to avoid significant harm.
The suspension of all U.S. foreign assistance following President Trump’s Executive Order in January 2025 had a devastating impact to many local and international organizations in areas of human rights, health, journalists, media outlets, digital rights advocates – worldwide-URN. Give us feedback on this story through our email: kamwokyatimes@gmail.com
