PEPFAR Saved: GOP Forces Trump to Back Off Global AIDS Cuts

July 16, 2025: In a dramatic policy reversal, Senate Republicans reached a deal with the White House on Tuesday to preserve full funding for PEPFAR, the U.S. government’s flagship global HIV/AIDS relief program. The agreement comes after widespread backlash—including from within GOP ranks—to a proposed $400 million cut that threatened the popular program’s future and risked sinking President Donald Trump’s broader $9.4 billion spending rescissions package.

The Trump administration had targeted PEPFAR as part of a broader push to claw back unspent federal funds, but lawmakers like Senator Susan Collins pushed back hard. “I’m very pleased that the funding for PEPFAR has been preserved,” Collins said, while still voicing concerns about cuts to other programs like public broadcasting.

First launched by President George W. Bush in 2003, PEPFAR is credited with saving over 25 million lives, primarily in Africa, and enjoys rare bipartisan support. White House officials previously cited conservative concerns over a report of abortions in Mozambique as part of their justification to slash PEPFAR funds, but Democrats and moderate Republicans decried that rationale as insufficient to gut a proven global health program.

Though PEPFAR was spared, the revised $9 billion rescissions package still includes $1.1 billion in cuts to public broadcasting and $8.3 billion from USAID, the agency that largely administers PEPFAR. Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota negotiated a deal to redirect some unspent funds toward tribal broadcasters to soften the blow. Still, the total cuts represent just 0.3% of Trump’s recently passed $3.4 trillion spending bill, which he proudly dubbed his “Big, Beautiful Bill.”