Bill Gates Calls Trump Admin ‘Geographically Illiterate’ Over Foreign Aid Cuts to Gaza Province

Bill Gates set the stage for the end of the Gates Foundation on Thursday, but also used the announcement to call out the Trump administration for hindering his work toward helping the international community.

“They cut the money to Gaza Province in Mozambique. That is really for drugs, so mothers don’t give their babies HIV. But the people doing the cutting are so geographically illiterate, they think it’s Gaza and condoms,” the billionaire told The New York Times. “Will they go meet those babies who got HIV because that money was cut? Probably not.”

“The picture of the world’s richest man killing the world’s poorest children is not a pretty one,” he then said of DOGE boss Elon Musk to The Financial Times.

“In the next four years — or eight years, I don’t know — the actual money going into these causes is reduced, and reduced way beyond what I would have expected,” Gates added to the NYT. “On childhood deaths, which over the next few years should have gone from five million to four million — now, unless there’s a big reversal, we’ll probably go from five million to six million.”

In January, a Trump executive order put a freeze on USAID funding. That was followed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio announcing the cancelation of 83% of its programs in March.

“The reductions to USAID are stunning. I thought there’d be like a 20 percent cut. Instead, right now, it’s like an 80 percent cut. And yes, I did not expect that. I don’t think anybody expected that,” Gates admitted on Thursday. “Nobody expected the executive branch to cut PEPFAR or polio money without the involvement of Congress. What’s going on with HIV research and trial networks, I didn’t expect that either. We will do our best to get these things changed. I will be an advocate. But those are real headwinds.”

“And what’s Congress going to do? My history with Congress is that they’re very supportive. We’ve had cases during Trump’s first presidency, when he and Russ Vought at the Office of Management and Budget said, ‘We’re going to cut PEPFAR.’ And Congress didn’t give it the time of day,” he continued. “But these are different times. And the cuts are so dramatic that even if we get some restored, we’re going to have a tough time.”

Still, Gates remains optimistic his $200 billion commitment to international health and human development will help save millions of children’s lives by the time the foundation closes in 2045.

“I don’t think we’re going to have administration after administration who cuts and cuts and cuts and cuts these things,” he concluded. “I see it as a four- to six-year interruption. And if we zoom out and think about 20 years from now — I do think we’ll cut childhood deaths, despite all this, because the Golden Rule was not repealed.”

Thursday’s interview comes four months after Gates said Trump impressed him over a shared dinner where they discussed working to end HIV and Polio. However, the Gates Foundation co-founder then laughed at the idea that his fellow billionaires were cozying up to Trump at his inauguration for the good of the country a month later.

You can read Bill Gates’ full NYT interview, here.

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