Will Trump end the most successful foreign utility in US history?

The President’s emergency program for AIDS pledge is in danger of being closed. The decision could kill hundreds of thousands of people and kickstart an epidemic.

Will Trump end the most successful foreign utility in US history?

The US ambassador to Uganda, Natalie A. Brown, visits the PepFar-supported National Health Laboratory and Diagnostic Services Facility in Kampala, Uganda.

(Chris Lubega / Us Embassy in Uganda)

On January 27, the Trump administration had given death sentences to hundreds of thousands of people, most of them in Africa surviving with HIV/AIDS thanks to the most successful health program for foreign help in the US history. The US government had effectively ordered clinics and hospitals throughout Africa and in countries such as Haiti, Brazil and India to cancel agreements and turn people who emerged for their regular doses of the life -saving antiretrovirals (inheritance) medicine. Panic spread over the more than 50 poor nations receiving the medicine.

Then, late January 28th, State Secretary Marco Rubio issued an “Exception” which May allow Some elements of the health program to start up again. But pepar, the president’s emergency program for AIDS -LIFT, remains threatened, although it has – no exaggeration – saved the lives of an estimated 26 million people since President George W. Bush launched it in 2003. Pepfar has also prevented an estimated 5.5 million mother- Two-Child Transmissions.

Pepfar earns tremendous respect for the United States in the countries receiving help. What’s more, until just a few years ago, the program also enjoyed overwhelming Bipartisan support in the US Congress, even from Conservative Members, partly because Evangelical Christians were excited about it and actually manage many of hospitals and clinics in Africa that dispensing the life -giving medicine. In 2018, under the first Trump administration, Congress Pepfar renewed without controversy.

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As soon as the Trump administration announced the message this week, this crisis hit. The basis of AIDS research (Amfar), a US-based advocate group, estimates that more than 222,000 people pick up heritage medicine every day. The administration not only froze financing, but also closes PepFars’s data system.

Emily Bass has spent decades investigating and writing about the global campaign against AIDS; Her 2021 book. To exit a plague: America’s struggle to defeat AIDS in Africais a compelling story about how grassroots movements in both the US and Africa eventually pushed the US government to act. She told me about a friend of her in Uganda, whose clinic ran out of the heritage she needed and that they already laid people out. “Let’s not forget mental health either,” she said. “People in Africa experienced just the same fear and strain that Americans did when the administration also paused Medicaid today.”

As American ambassador to Zambia from 2017 to 2020, Dan Foote administered this country’s pepar program. He is excited about the program and warned about what eliminates it could disassociate. “Completion of PepFar will cause an AIDS explosion in Africa, which will lead to an AIDS epidemic in the United States, period. This is how the global movement works among the countries, ”he said. “HIV/AIDS is extremely virulent when it comes out there. It’s like a steam roller. “

Foote also explained why PepFar is crucial to us national security: “If we want to continue to be a superpower, we need to make sure that the citizens of the world still like and respect us. When we have a good name abroad, ordinary people put pressure on their governments to maintain or create alliances with the United States. And alliances are probably the largest single key to maintain American national security in the long term. “

“Instead,” added Foote, “we’ve started walking around and kicking every ally we have in the tibia. China will definitely take advantage of the end of PepFar. “

Unfortunately, the latest threat to Pepfar has been flooded by the news of Trump’s contemporary suspension of many other domestic federal programs. In addition, the US mainstream media have failed in recent years to either report on Pepfar’s ongoing success or to document the growing danger of its future.

Pepfar’s budget for the current year is $ 7.5 billion dollars. It’s half of what a single US NAVY -AUM COMPANY COST. In the more than two decades since George W. Bush started the program, there has not been a single major corruption scandal everywhere.

The cost of HIV/AIDS medicine has fallen, but they are still out of the range of most people in poor countries. A few years back, Jean William Pape, the Haitian doctor, who manages PepFar’s inheritance distributions to 100,000 people in Haiti, told me that the drugs cost $ 250-300 per day. Person per year. “The United States supplies 90 percent of our needs. Without this help, thousands of Haitians would die every month. “

James North



James North has reported from Africa, Latin America and Asia for four decades. He lives in New York City.