Trump administration to phase out HIV funding for South Africa

Source: Politico

06/18/2026 07:23 PM EDT


The Trump administration has decided to start phasing out HIV funding for South Africa following the country’s “failure to make demonstrable progress on policy requests by the administration,” a State Department official told POLITICO on Thursday.

The official, who agreed to discuss the decision only if POLITICO did not use their name, said the decision to “initiate a phased drawdown of PEPFAR programming in South Africa” is in line with President Donald Trump’s February 2025 executive order accusing South Africa of discriminating against its white Afrikaner minority and directing U.S. agencies to stop providing aid to the country unless it changes its policies. The South African government has rejected accusations of discriminating against Afrikaners.

Afrikaners ruled South Africa for nearly half a century under an apartheid system of discrimination against black South Africans. That ended in the early 1990s because of resistance from black South Africans and international sanctions. Some Afrikaners today say they are victims of discrimination stemming from affirmative action and land redistribution policies.

The funding is from the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief — PEPFAR — of which South Africa has been a top beneficiary. The country has the highest number of people living with HIV in the world: around 7.8 million, according to the latest World Health Organization data.

Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/18/pepfar-south-africa-white-afrikaners-hiv-aids-00968479?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=dlvr.it