The Trump administration is ignoring a directive from Congress and refusing to fully fund a landmark H.I.V. program that is widely credited with saving millions of lives over the past two decades.
The Office of Management and Budget, headed by Russell T. Vought, has apportioned only $2.9 billion of $6 billion appropriated by Congress for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief in the 2025 fiscal year spending bill, according to budget documents and members of the program’s staff.
PEPFAR, as the program is known, was created in 2003, during the George W. Bush administration, to provide funding for H.I.V. prevention and treatment to low-income countries. It has long enjoyed broad bipartisan support and is often cited as the most effective public health campaign ever, credited with saving an estimated 26 million lives.
In July, the Trump administration withdrew a proposed $400 million rescission from PEPFAR’s budget in the face of bipartisan Senate opposition. But that fight was a distraction, according to staff members who work on the program, because, they said, they have repeatedly been told by Mr. Vought’s budget office that the program would be receiving only about half of the $6 billion appropriated by Congress for the 2025 fiscal year, even with that $400 million restored.
That cut is visible in budget documents that appear on a federal website tracking the activity of the White House Office of Management and Budget. The Trump administration took that website offline in January, but it was restored late last week after a court order.
Whether the executive branch can withhold money appropriated by Congress has been a focus of a number of legal battles since the President Trump took office vowing to slash government spending and terminate many foreign aid programs.
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