The Global Health Consequences of Foreign Aid Cuts

Authored by: Zora Agathocleous

Art by: Mia Hsu

On July 17th, the Senate passed President Trump’s request to rescind $9 billion in foreign aid and public broadcasting funding. 

This request, a bill officially known as the Recissions Act of 2025 signed into law on July 24th, is a political device the Trump Administration used to cancel funding previously approved by Congress. This rescissions package was the first to succeed in over 30 years, the last being President George H.W. Bush’s rescission package of 1992. It is likely to be the first of many. Along with broader cuts to global health funding, the bill is having immediate and devastating consequences for global health. 

The reductions in the package— from $203 million from international organizations, to $500 million from funding preserved by the Senate for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, nutrition, and maternal and child health programs, in addition to $2.5 billion from bilateral development assistance in previously approved U.S. funding— threatens an inevitable regression of decades of progress in global health by slashing the infrastructure the U.S. government currently has in place for critical public health and humanitarian responses worldwide. [1]

Once enacted in full, the cuts will exacerbate the already dire, globally felt impacts of the Trump administration’s executive orders in January, when a 90-day freeze on foreign aid was imposed amid an overarching review of all aid programs, along with a stop-work directive that halted the bulk of USAID-supported projects worldwide. [2] As these organizations leverage such a high impact-per-dollar, 300,000 lives were lost in the following months as a result of the freeze, according to current estimates. [3]

At one such organization, Partners in Health, an international global health justice organization that has operated on critical USAID funding for decades, tens of thousands of community health workers labor tirelessly to deliver high-quality care in tuberculosis, malaria, maternal and child health, and HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention in the world’s most vulnerable communities. [4]

Community health workers at the backbone of delivery programs where Partners in Health operates— from vaccine delivery to children in Haiti to maternal care for young women in Rwanda, to tuberculosis treatment regimens for healthcare workers in Kazakhstan— fear exacerbated rates of mortality and morbidity from undiagnosed or delayed-diagnosis illnesses as a result of decimated programs. They are equally concerned about the unmitigated spread of infectious diseases and a growing lack of access to health care services for the populations they serve. [5]

The consequences of the cuts are only beginning to be felt, and the full impact will continue to unfold over months and years. During this time, millions will be cut off from essential services and prescriptions that keep them alive, health clinics will face closure, and access to medical services in resource-deprived areas will rapidly be decimated. When medication regimens are not in place, resistance develops to the antiviral and antibiotic treatments that are in place, which exacerbates conditions in patients. 

Clinicians who specialize in delivering health care to vulnerable populations have been laid off and are currently positioned to leave the field entirely, or are bearing the difficulty of attempting to continue providing care to patients with limited resources, no wages, and meager staff. [5]

These severe damages to health systems and humanitarian response are all evident in reports from medical and human rights partners of U.S. health justice organizations around the globe, such as Physicians for Human Rights. A study in the The Lancet, the first to evaluate the impact of two decades of USAID interventions on adult and child mortality across low-income and middle-income countries up to 2030, estimates that more than 14 million people could die within five years as a result of the cuts. The same study estimates that the work of USAID programs has saved approximately 92 million lives over only the past two decades. [6]

The value of human life that will be lost as a result of the rescissions cannot be felt or delineated in the financial outline of an international program budget, or in attempts to comprehend what $500 million quantifies for the U.S. (less than 0.01% of the federal budget). [7]

Even with bipartisan Congressional approval, the Administration continues to withhold billions in critical funding for programs such as PEPFAR and the Global Fund. U.S. support for global health programs and initiatives must be protected, and we necessitate comprehensive action and global solidarity to restore funding. 

If we are to prevent the further indelible consequences the rescissions package will have on global health,  we must engage with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle as we advocate for this critical policy. Contact your representatives and urge them to release these lifesaving funds. Email your Members of Congress and urge them to pressure the OMB and the State Department to immediately release the full, Congressionally approved funding for these lifesaving programs. 

The race to restore aid in the Fiscal Year 2026 budget is on— and your action can make the difference. Every voice counts. 

References 

1. U.S. Congress. (2025). H.R. 4: Rescissions Act of 2025 (119th Cong.) (https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/4/text)

2. Kaiser Family Foundation. (2025, October 16). The Trump Administration’s Foreign Aid Review: Proposed reorganization of U.S. global health programs [Fact sheet]. https://www.kff.org/global-health-policy/fact-sheet/the-trump-administrations-foreign-aid-review-proposed-reorganization-of-u-s-global-health-programs/

3. Ensor, J. (2025, May 30) Doge cuts to USAid blamed for 300,000 deaths — most of them children. The Times. (https://www.thetimes.com/us/american-politics/article/usaid-doge-deaths-children-cuts-7nb83dfk)

4. Partners In Health. (n.d.). Our Impact. Retrieved October 13, 2025 (https://www.pih.org/our-impact)

5. Partners In Health. (2025, June 11). The health consequences of foreign aid cuts. https://www.pih.org/article/rescissions-health-foreign-aid-cuts

6. Lambert, J, (2025) Study: 14 million lives could be lost due to Trump aid cuts. https://www.npr.org/sections/goats-and-soda/2025/07/01/nx-s1-5452513/trump-usaid-foreign-aid-deaths

7. Arnold, C. (2025, May 15). The costs to global health. Hopkins Bloomberg Public Health Magazine. Retrieved from https://magazine.publichealth.jhu.edu/2025/the-cost-to-global-health

8. Cavalcanti, Daniella, Lucas de Oliveira Ferreira de Sales, Andréa Ferreira Silva, Elisa Landin, Daiana Albino Pena, Caterina Monti, Gonzalo Barreix, Natanael J. Silva, Paula Vaz, Francisco Saute, Gonzalo Fanjul, Quique Bassat, Denise Naniche, James Macinko, and Davide Rasella. “Evaluating the Comprehensive Impact of Two Decades of USAID Interventions and Forecasting the Effects of Defunding on Mortality Up to 2030.” SSRN, May 5, 2025. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5239038