White House Releases FY26 Budget Request
On May 2, 2025, the White House released preliminary details of its FY26 budget request, including funding for global health activities at the State Department, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Fogarty International Center (FIC) at National Institutes of Health (NIH). While funding amounts for most areas (e.g., HIV, tuberculosis, maternal and child health, etc.) were not specified (more detailed budget information is expected later this month or in June), the proposed budget includes significant reductions in global health funding overall. It also includes proposed rescissions to prior year funding amounts. As specified in the request:
State/USAID:
- Global Health Programs (GHP) account: Totals $3.8 billion, $6.2 billion below the FY25 amount ($10.0 billion).
- States that the budget focuses on “lifesaving assistance and preventing infectious diseases from reaching the United States.”
- President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR): States that funding is preserved for any current beneficiaries.
- Family Planning & Reproductive Health (FP/RH): Suggests that the administration is proposing to eliminate funding for FP/RH programs in line with previous actions (see here and here).
- World Health Organization (WHO): In line with the Trump Administration’s executive order Withdrawing The United States From The World Health Organization, “pauses” assessed and voluntary contributions to WHO.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): Eliminates the CDC’s Global Health Center, which was funded at $693 million in FY25.
Fogarty International Center (FIC): Eliminates FIC, which is at NIH and was funded at $95 million in FY25.
Table: KFF Analysis of Global Health Funding in the FY 2026 Budget Request |
||||
| Department / Agency / Program | FY25 CR (based on FY24 Final, millions) | FY26 Request (millions) 1 | Difference (FY26 Request – FY25 CR, millions) | Notes: 1 |
|
State Department & USAID |
||||
| Global Health Programs (GHP)
|
$10,030.5
|
$3,797.5
|
-$6,232.5
|
The United States is the largest global contributor to programs that provide so-called family planning services through liberal NGOs, and have funded abortions. This stands in direct conflict with the President’s action reinstating the “Mexico City Policy.” The Budget protects life and prevents a proabortion agenda from being promoted abroad with taxpayer dollars. The Budget focuses on lifesaving assistance and preventing infectious diseases from reaching the United States. The U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief funding is preserved for any current beneficiaries. |
| Family Planning & Reproductive Health (FP/RH) 2 | $607.5 | $0 | -$607.5 | |
| World Health Organization (WHO)3 | $118.9 | $0 | -$118.9 | The Budget pauses most assessed and all voluntary contributions to UN and other international organizations, including for the UN Regular Budget, UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, and the World Health Organization. This is consistent with Executive Order 14199, “Withdrawing the United States From and Ending Funding to Certain United Nations Organizations and Reviewing United States Support to All International Organizations.” To preserve maximum negotiating leverage, the President can choose to fund these international organizations out of the A1OF if he chooses. |
|
Health & Human Services (HHS) |
||||
| CDC Global Health Programs | $692.8 | $0 | -$692.8 | The Budget refocuses CDC’s mission on core activities such as emerging and infectious disease surveillance, outbreak investigations, and maintaining the Nation’s public health infrastructure, while streamlining programs and eliminating waste. The Budget proposes merging multiple programs into one grant program and giving States more flexibility to address local needs. Specifically, the Budget proposes consolidating funding for Infectious Disease and Opioids, Viral Hepatitis, Sexually Transmitted Infections, and Tuberculosis programs into one grant program funded at $300 million.The Budget eliminates duplicative, DEI, or simply unnecessary programs, including: the National Center for Chronic Diseases Prevention and Health Promotion; National Center for Environmental Health; National Center for Injury Prevention and Control; the Global Health Center; Public Health Preparedness and Response, which can be conducted more effectively by States; and the Preventive Health and Human Services Block Grant, the purposes for which can be best funded by States. The Budget refocuses CDC on emerging and infectious disease surveillance, outbreak investigations, preparedness and response, and maintaining the Nation’s public health infrastructure. The Budget maintains more than $4 billion for CDC. |
| NIH Fogarty International Center (FIC) | $95.16 | $0 | -$95.16 | The Administration is committed to restoring accountability, public trust, and transparency at the NIH. NIH has broken the trust of the American people with wasteful spending, misleading information, risky research, and the promotion of dangerous ideologies that undermine public health. While evidence of the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic leaking from a laboratory is now confirmed by several intelligence agencies, the NIH’s inability to prove that its grants to the Wuhan Institute of Virology were not complicit in such a possible leak, or get data and hold recipients of Federal funding accountable is evidence that NIH has grown too big and unfocused. Further, the NIH has been involved in dangerous gain-of-function research and failed to adequately address it, which further undermines public confidence in NIH. The NIH has also promoted radical gender ideology to the detriment of America’s youth. For example, the NIH funded a study titled “Psychosocial Functioning in Transgender Youth after 2 Years of Hormones,” in which two participants tragically committed suicide. The Budget proposes to reform NIH and focus NIH research activities in line with the President’s commitment to MAHA, including consolidating multiple overlapping and ill-focused programs into five new focus areas with associated spending reforms: the National Institute on Body Systems Research; National Institute on Neuroscience and Brain Research; National Institute of General Medical Sciences; National Institute of Disability Related Research; and National Institute on Behavioral Health. The Budget also eliminates funding for the National Institute on Minority and Health Disparities (-$534 million), which is replete with DEI expenditures, the Fogarty International Center (-$95 million), the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (-$170 million), and the National Institute of Nursing Research (-$198 million). NIH research would align with the President’s priorities to address chronic disease and other epidemics, implementing all executive orders, and eliminating research on climate change, radical gender ideology, and divisive racialism. This new structure retains the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health. The Budget maintains $27 billion for NIH research. |
1 – Based on information provided in the “Fiscal Year 2026 Discretionary Budget Request – Major Discretionary Funding Changes” released by OMB on May 2, 2025.
2 – The family planning & reproductive health total includes bilateral funding and U.S. contributions to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
3 – In addition to the assessed amounts, the U.S. provides voluntary contributions to WHO for specific projects/activities determined on an annual basis. These voluntary contributions are not represented here. The Trump Administration has indicated it is cancelling all contributions (assessed and voluntary) to WHO. The FY25 amounts are based on the FY24 levels, which are based on estimates listed in the FY25 Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Congressional Budget Justification.