President Donald Trump recently proposed a national health budget for next year, 2027, which hasn’t yet been approved by Congress but includes major health developments. One of, if not the most significant, of those is that he wants to eliminate $4.3 billion from the government’s health budget, including all funding that goes to the Pan-American Health Organization, which is directly affiliated with the WHO. The proposal largely focuses on an increase in defense spending and “deep cuts” to health programs, according to Health Policy Watch. Specifically, it outlines a $445 billion increase in Department of War funding with a 12.5% reduction in funding for the Department of Health and Human Services. There are also a notable number of domestic cuts, such as over $900 million for HIV/AIDS, $500 million for maternal and child health, $870 million for health workforce programs, and $560 million for mental health. Meanwhile, the CDC has been allocated the same budget as last year.
The boycott of PAHO comes as a surprise to some because it was never a stated goal of Trump’s, even when he announced on his first day in office that the US would be leaving the WHO. Washington, however, never paid any assessed contributions to PAHO, and Trump very recently described it as a “corrupt” organization that has “shown no independence from inappropriate political influences, such as when the WHO aided in the COVID-19 coverup.” Meanwhile, measles is trending in certain parts of the Americas, and Caribbean countries lack proper health systems.
Another part of the 2027 proposal is the elimination of “disease-specific accounts”, which is pretty much a final blow to PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. The new budget suggests 60% of its funds were wasted and made misleading claims about its work, despite PEPFAR being the government’s most successful aid program, and has been considered to have rescued twenty-five million lives in over twenty years since it was started.
The department budget also includes $5.1 billion to execute the America First Global Health Strategy, which mostly contains bilateral agreements with other countries. A few days ago, the State Department signed thirty bilateral agreements with countries, and the latest ones are with the Philippines, Cambodia, and Tajikistan.
It’s important to note that Congress still has yet to approve the budget, and it’s possible they’ll want to authorize more for domestic health. Also, in February, Congress approved a bill consisting of more than $9 billion for global health for 2026, which is triple Trump’s request for $3.8 billion.
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