Yesterday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed that the Trump Administration has finished gutting the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), wiping out 83% of its programs.

Life-saving health and humanitarian efforts have been scrapped — leaving millions of people without the care they depend on.

Slashing USAID’s global health funding is an outright betrayal of America’s role in saving lives around the world.

According to The New York Times, programs recently defunded include:

• A grant to help UNICEF deliver polio vaccines to millions of children

• A contract for malaria tests, treatments, and preventative measures that would have protected 53 million people

• A project in the Democratic Republic of Congo that is the only source of water for 250,000 people

• HIV treatment projects that provided medication to 350,000 people in Lesotho, Tanzania, and Eswatini

• Eighty-seven women’s shelters in South Africa that took care of 33,000 survivors of rape and domestic violence

• A project that provided food for malnourished pregnant women in Bangladesh

This is not just a budget cut. It’s a deliberate dismantling of U.S. global health leadership. It is also illegal and a violation of Congressionally mandated aid commitments.

If you’re wondering how this relates to the lawsuit over the foreign aid freeze we’ve been telling you about, here’s the situation:

• Last night, the judge in the case agreed that the aid freeze was illegal and unconstitutional

• This was a major win to protect our democracy and prevent Trump and Musk from simply refusing to spend money Congress has appropriated

• However, the judge did not stop Trump from canceling contracts after they have been subjected to a supposedly individualized review — which is what Rubio claims to have done

• So, despite the fact that the judge has ruled for us, the vast majority of U.S. humanitarian programs are, for now, stripped of funding

This is beyond shameful.

When Trump and DOGE (Elon Musk’s so-called “Department of Government Efficiency”) target USAID, they’re barely making a dent in the federal budget — but they’re doing tremendous damage to the health of people around the world.

Call your members of Congress. Tell them:

Demand that the Trump Administration reverse these devastating cuts and restore Congressionally approved global health funding. Speak out in support of USAID and America’s important humanitarian work.

Thanks for taking action.

For progress,

- Robert Weissman & Lisa Gilbert, Co-Presidents of Public Citizen
 
 
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