Photo: Alamy
President Donald Trump’s State Department will broaden the Mexico City Policy, cutting off U.S. foreign aid to programs tied to abortion and “gender ideology” initiatives.
“The department will soon take additional steps to close loopholes that allowed taxpayer funding for promotion of abortion in previous iterations of the Mexico City Policy and expand the scope of the policy to ensure every penny of U.S. foreign assistance prioritizes American values, not the woke agenda,” a senior State Department official said, according to The Daily Signal.
The expanded rules will prohibit U.S. funds from supporting diversity, equity and inclusion programs, as well as gender-transition efforts abroad. Officials pointed to the cancellation of a $2 million grant for gender-affirming surgeries in Guatemala as one example.
The changes will apply across all non-military foreign assistance programs, including global health efforts addressing HIV/AIDS, maternal and child health, nutrition, malaria and tuberculosis.
“The State Department continues to advance President Trump’s ‘America First’ foreign policy,” the official said.
First implemented by President Ronald Reagan in 1984, the Mexico City Policy prevents U.S. taxpayer money from going to foreign organizations that perform or promote abortion. It has historically been rescinded by Democratic presidents and reinstated by Republicans.
President Trump reinstated the policy in January, having previously expanded it during his first administration to encompass all global health assistance. Former President Joe Biden repealed the measure in his first week in office in 2021.
Under the new mandate, groups receiving U.S. foreign aid cannot provide or advocate for abortion, promote gender ideology or DEI-related programming, or engage in discrimination tied to those initiatives.
A previous White House fact sheet noted, “The first Trump Administration also extended this policy to global health assistance. A 2020 report by the United States Agency for International Development found that this life-affirming policy in no way diminished women’s health around the world.”
The president has also “Cut all funding to the United Nations Population Fund, which supports coercive abortion and forced sterilization.”