Washington will gradually withdraw South Africa from PEPFAR, a North American program that has been financing the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS for more than 20 years. The decision, taken at a time of tension between the two countries, was justified by the Trump administration with political demands
The United States will begin to withdraw South Africa from one of the world’s main programs to combat HIV/AIDS. The statement is from the State Department, . At issue is PEPFAR, the US President’s Emergency Plan to Combat AIDS, created in 2003, during the presidency of George W. Bush. The program has financed, for more than two decades, prevention, testing, treatment and health teams in several African countries.
In South Africa, however, the cut has another weight: it is the country with the largest HIV epidemic in the world. Data from the World Health Organization points to around eight million people living with the virus.
The decision was communicated by email and attributed only to “a State Department official”. Washington says Pretoria has not made “demonstrable progress” on the political demands put forward by the Trump administration. The official did not specify what these demands were, but the North American administration has already asked the South African Government, in the past, to revoke a law that allows the expropriation of land without compensation, to exempt United States companies from the rules for the economic promotion of the black population or, even, to avoid approaches to countries considered adversaries of Washington.
Donald Trump has also accused the South African Government of “discriminating against Afrikaners”, the white minority descended mainly from Dutch settlers. Trump even stated that they were being “victims of a genocide”.
According to the official cited by the New York Times, the United States “warned several times” South Africa that PEPFAR funding would end if the Government “did not respond to Trump’s concerns.”
In 2025, South Africa received around 213 million dollars, around 186 million euros, from the United States for HIV/AIDS programs.
The State Department official cited by the New York Times stated that South Africa is “a middle-income country” and is “more than capable of supporting its own health programs.”
