Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, a philanthropist who chairs the Gates Foundation, indicated to Politico's Dasha Burns during an interview that the Trump administration's cuts in U.S. foreign aid have resulted in many deaths.
Gates told Burns that America is not the only country that has cut assistance.
In the Gates Foundation's 2025 Goalkeepers report, he asserted that "In 2024, 4.6 million children died before their fifth birthday. In 2025, that number is projected to rise for the first time this century, by just over 200,000, to an estimated 4.8 million children."
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He told Burns that "nobody wants to take responsibility for the tragedy that's going on here. In my dialogue with President Trump he clearly cares about these issues and wants to find, a, a generous level for the spending that the U.S. won't be responsible for these big increases."
Gates indicated that "sudden and massive cuts" to assistance have undeniably "led to lots of deaths."
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The White House pushed back.
In a statement provided to Fox News Digital, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly asserted, "This is totally false – America remains the most generous country in the world because President Trump has a humanitarian heart, and partner countries want to be self-reliant in addressing the needs of their people. The Trump administration is ensuring all programs funded by American taxpayers align with American interests, just as this President was elected to do."
A senior administration official asserted, "The U.S. provides more foreign aid than any country in the world. We’re going to do more than anyone in the world again this year, but we’re going to do it the right way: holistically and as part of an integrated foreign policy. We are not going to fund an NGO industrial complex that built itself up that was taking a substantial percentage of the money and not going directly to the recipients; it was going to these organizations that had multibillion-dollar projects and budgets. It’s going to be much more successful and much more effective."
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Gates said his talks with Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio make him "hopeful that they and the Congress will make sure that" the U.S. returns to very near the "level of generosity that existed before 2025."
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