Today USAID is effectively closing its doors, and with it goes decades of life-saving strategic health diplomacy that prevented epidemics, intervened in famines, and saved millions.  

We have been wrongly told these funds are wasteful, when in fact they are some of the best investments our nation has made. As one former USAID employee explained, it cost the average American household roughly $6 a year in taxes to prevent several million deaths – mostly infants and children – in a catastrophic drought in the Horn of Africa in 2022.  

PEPFAR, the most successful global aid program in history – a key bipartisan program within USAID and one I’m extraordinarily proud to have been a part of creating – turned the tide on the global HIV/AIDS epidemic that was killing 3 million people annually.  As President George W. Bush shared today with departing USAID workers, “Is it in our interest that 25 million people who would have died now live? I think it is … On behalf of a grateful nation, thank you for your hard work, and God bless you.” 

As President Trump knows, a strong leader needs more than to just carry a big stick – we need to be able to offer carrots to those we want to work with and support. A $400 million recission from Congressionally-approved PEPFAR funds doesn’t improve our global position – rather it makes us appear unreliable and untrustworthy partners – and leaves room for China to engage and grow their sphere of influence. I urge my colleagues in Congress to rethink these cuts and continue the bipartisan success of PEPFAR.