Trump to Withhold or Divert Family Planning, Global Health Funds While Giving More Corporate Handouts
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Trump administration intends to withhold or divert nearly all global family planning and reproductive health funds, according to newly revealed budget documents released today by Public Citizen, and jointly analyzed with Partners In Health and PAI.
The administration has targeted more than $600 million in international family planning and reproductive health funds that Congress appropriated for this purpose, according to a U.S. State Department budget report and a recent congressional notification. This would defund nearly all family planning services across the globe, funding streams that have longstanding U.S. support.
In addition, the administration plans to cut funding to low- and middle-income countries by $1.66 billion, while giving $888 million to an “innovation fund” that would benefit big corporations. Most countries would lose health funding, including eight countries that would no longer receive any funds at all.
“These documents show the Trump administration’s near total defunding of global family planning, in open defiance of Congress,” said Peter Maybarduk, Access to Medicines Director for Public Citizen. “The State Department also is taking money meant for health aid to the world’s poorest countries and giving it away to U.S. corporations instead. State had justified its brutal cuts to foreign aid with complaints about supposed NGO waste, but now is creating an entirely new source of unaccountable waste by the tens of millions of dollars.”
“Despite an increasing amount of wealth in the world, health systems are failing the people who need them most. In Haiti, doctors often can’t access the medicines they need to treat HIV patients. In rural Malawi, a lack of supplies forces pregnant women to go without ultrasounds. And with U.S. funding withheld, situations like these are only getting worse,” said Dr. Sheila Davis, CEO of Partners In Health. “What our patients deserve is simple: the medicines, the supplies, and the care that exist. They deserve pragmatic solidarity, and a Congress willing to ensure that global health funding reaches the people it’s intended for as a moral imperative.”
“Funding for lifesaving health care put into law by Congress should not become a slush fund for the Trump administration,” said Craig Lasher, Senior Fellow for PAI. “The administration has made its hostility toward family planning clear, but it does not get to override Congress or deny women and girls access to the care they need. Before this administration illegally dismantled USAID, U.S. government investments in overseas family planning programs helped prevent more than 17 million unintended pregnancies and 34,000 maternal deaths in 2024 alone. Withholding money Congress explicitly earmarked for this purpose is a scandalous disregard for the law.”