HIV/AIDS Activists Halt Traffic Outside State Department Protesting Trump's PEPFAR Freeze

Yahoo

10-02-2025

Alexa Wilkinson
Dozens of AIDS activists and advocates shut down Constitution Avenue outside the U.S. State Department in Washington, D.C. on Friday to protest Donald Trump and Secretary Marco Rubio's proposed pause on the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) funding.
Linking arms, protestors chanted, 'Hands off PEPFAR!,' calling attention to the 20 million people whose lives are jeopardized by a federal halt on AIDS and HIV relief funding abroad. Speakers like Broadway actor Javier Muñoz shared personal stories and calls to action in conjunction with the civil disobedience.
On January 25, Rubio ordered the freeze on nearly all foreign aid, including PEPFAR, a federal program providing HIV medications that has been credited with saving 25 million lives and preventing over 5.5 million children from being born with HIV in over 50 countries.
Three days later, Rubio announced a waiver resuming aid for 'life-saving humanitarian assistance' during the State Department's 90-day pause on foreign aid. Although the waiver appears to allow for the distribution of HIV medications in other countries to resume, the New York Times reports that it's unclear whether the waiver applies to preventative care like PrEP. According to a February 6 press release from the action's organizers — Housing Works, Health GAP, and TAG — the waiver has been locked in 'bureaucratic limbo' and currently excludes large portions of PEPFAR's preventative care programming, including PrEP, for 2.8 million people. Meanwhile, 270,000 health workers funded by PEPFAR have been told not to report to work or serve patients.
'The recent freeze on [PEPFAR's] funding is not just a bureaucratic decision; it is a death sentence for millions who rely on these life-saving treatments,' Charles King, the CEO of Housing Works, said in a statement. 'We cannot allow decades of progress to be undone. The U.S. must immediately reaffirm its commitment to global health and human dignity by restoring PEPFAR funding.'
The United Nations AIDS Agency previously stated that more than six million people could die from HIV and AIDS in the next four years if the Trump administration pulls its global funding for PEPFAR, per Reuters.
'We've been fighting this pandemic since the '80s when Reagan was president when it was a very homophobic administration. It was doing a lot of the same things the Trump administration is doing today, anti-abortion, anti-trans, anti-gay, et cetera,' Mark Harrington, Executive Director of TAG, said in a separate statement. 'But it's a long game, and we have to stick together, and we have to fight for those people who are being endangered right now. And that means both people domestically and the people internationally in the PEPFAR programs.'
AIDS activists have called on fellow advocates to demand that the Trump administration fully restore PEPFAR funding by joining their own protests, urging elected officials to defend PEPFAR, and spreading awareness on social media using the hashtag #SavePEPFAR.
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