Statement on the Importance of Resuming Congressionally Approved Foreign Affairs Funding
Washington, D.C., Feb 28, 2025 – The Administration announced in January that it would conduct a 90-day review of America’s foreign aid investments, which is the prerogative of any new Administration.
This review appears to have come to an abrupt and early end. Numerous UN agencies, funds and programs have received notices from the U.S. government that their funding has been terminated, in many cases despite prior Administration determinations that this same work was “lifesaving” and should continue.
These programs have enjoyed generations of support from Republicans and Democrats in Congress, in part because they make our country and our world safer, healthier, and more prosperous.
Among the work terminated are essential childhood immunization programs that have saved hundreds of millions of lives and trillions of dollars, all while keeping our country safe from infectious diseases. These program terminations are:
- Endangering Global and U.S. Health Security: An outbreak in a remote village can spread to a major American city within 36 hours. But tens of millions of dollars in funding and tens of thousands of U.S.-supported staff—including more than 20,000 vaccinators—have been pulled from disease surveillance and outbreak response programs, including for rising threats like bird flu and Ebola.
- Allowing Deadly Diseases to Make a Comeback: Canceling a $131 million grant to UNICEF’s polio immunization program undermines efforts to contain and eradicate the disease and puts children everywhere at risk. The world barely averted a major outbreak in Gaza last fall. Failure to eradicate polio now could lead to as many as 200,000 cases each year, at the cost of billions of dollars.
- Compromising the Global Health Supply Chain: Major parts of USAID’s $9.5 billion supply chain program, which helps deliver vaccines and other essential medicines to families around the world, have been canceled. Disrupting the delivery of essential medicines will cost lives and greatly hamper efforts to contain new disease threats before they reach American shores.
Restoring these programs ensures a more stable and peaceful world, protects millions of children from preventable and unnecessary suffering, and preserves our country’s leadership at a time when our geopolitical rivals are eager to supplant American influence.
We urge Congressional leaders to work with the Administration to reverse the termination of these programs and resume the disbursement of Congressionally appropriated, foreign assistance funds, consistent with their Constitutional authority.
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Brent Nagel
Brent Nagel is the Communications Officer for the Shot@Life campaign. Previously, he served as communications officer at the Social Progress Imperative, a global development nonprofit that publishes the Social Progress Index, a leading measure of wellbeing. Brent holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia, where he studied philosophy and Spanish literature, and a master’s in politics and international studies from the University of Cambridge.