Biden administration expected to make cuts to AIDS relief programs started by Bush administration

The Biden administration plans to cut the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, started by the Bush administration, by more than 6% in the fiscal 2025, according to a recent news report. 

The State Department has confirmed the cuts are in the works, according to Politico, which first reported them July 2. 

The department has gradually spent down a glut in the PEPFAR budget from years in which funding from Congress exceeded State’s ability to spend it. Now the glut is gone, and Congress in March held the program’s $4.4 billion budget flat, Politico reported.

On Monday, the agency released a report on the matter – titled "Update on PEPFAR’s Programming Budget." However, it did not return a request later in the week to clarify the numbers. 

PEPFAR was launched by President George W. Bush in 2003 and has been credited for saving the lives of millions of people in Africa. 

It was a notable issue at the time for a Republican president to launch this initiative because at the time, Democrats were more generally more active in AIDS research and attempting to bring more awareness to it.

The initiative had bipartisan support with a goal to prevent "HIV infections, and accelerate progress toward achieving HIV/AIDS pandemic control in more than 50 countries around the world," according to its website. 

PEPFAR has AIDS preventative programs in over 50 countries including Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Nigeria. Since its creation in 2003, PEPFAR has invested over $100 billion in the global fight against AIDS/HIV through preventative programs and maintaining control when it spreads. 

The PEPFAR official told Politico that some at-risk groups will have a 3.4% reduction in programs while others would have a larger reduction, but didn't explain why.

“PEPFAR is a data-driven program and every country has different HIV epidemiology in different contexts, so I can’t speak specifically to any particular country,” the official told the outlet.

Advocates for PEPFAR are hoping that the decision to make cuts to the programs will be reversed. 

“People are getting attacked, arrested, brutally assaulted, and it’s legitimate to ask what is PEPFAR’s strategy around communities, and how is it possible to implement a robust strategy when the math is going in the opposite direction,” Asia Russell, executive director of Health GAP, told Politico. 

Health GAP actively advocates for HIV treatment all over the world.

The George W. Bush Presidential Center did not respond to a request for comment.

Those who are incarcerated, inject drugs and/or are part of the LGBTQ community are more likely to contract HIV or AIDS. In different countries in Africa, LGBTQ individuals are discriminated against, which is why advocates are worried about the cuts to the preventative programs. 

The deputy director for public policy, Brian Honermann, at amFAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research, said there has to be a strategy in place for when these reductions happen to still be able to serve those affected by the program. 

"You have to come up with a programmatic understanding of how these differences matter and how we’re gonna programmatically respond,” he told Politico.