Foreign Aid — News & Analysis

UNAIDS: U.S. aid cuts could cause 6 million more HIV infections and 4 million AIDS deaths by 2029 (July 10, 2025)

July 10, 2025 — The 2025 Global AIDS Update released by UNAIDS warned that the Trump administration's cuts to PEPFAR and related HIV programs could result in 6 million additional HIV infections and 4 million more AIDS-related deaths by 2029 — reversing what the report described as "decades of progress" on the epidemic. The U.S. had been the largest single donor to the global HIV response; the report said its "sudden withdrawal" had "disrupted treatment and prevention programs around the world."

The UNAIDS data showed that hard-won gains were real and measurable: the global HIV response had achieved a 40 percent reduction in new infections in 2024 compared to earlier years, and a 56 percent decline in sub-Saharan Africa. Five countries, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, had been on track to achieve a 90 percent decline in new infections by 2030 compared with 2010. PEPFAR had funded 47 percent of HIV programs in sub-Saharan African countries. With that funding gone or severely curtailed, the projected backsliding was catastrophic.

Meanwhile, the administration's FY2026 budget request proposed a 60 percent cut to all foreign health programs — from approximately $10 billion to under $3.7 billion — covering HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, nutrition, maternal and child health, and childhood vaccination. Congressional appropriators in both parties pushed back on the scale of the proposed cuts; the Republican-led House Appropriations Committee advanced a bill maintaining full PEPFAR funding and rejecting the deepest reductions to malaria and TB programs, setting up a prolonged fight over final appropriations.